Capitalisn't

Is Private Credit In The Public Interest? with Jim Grant

The meteoric rise of private credit over the last decade has raised concerns among banks about unfair competition and among regulators about risks to financial stability.  Historically, regulated banks have provided most of the credit that finances businesses in the United States. However, since the 2008 financial crisis, banks have restricted their credit lines in response to new regulations. In their place has arisen private credit, which comprises direct (and mostly unregulated) lending,...

Ralph Nader's Capitalism

"The only true aging is the erosion of one's ideals," says Ralph Nader, the former third-party presidential candidate who just turned 90 after more than 60 years of consumer advocacy and fighting for small business in America. From influencing the transformative passage of car safety legislation to advancing numerous environmental protection and public accountability causes, Nader has fought against the proliferation and insinuation of corporate power in our government. In between all of th...

The New Business Of News, with Ben Smith

Given the recent mass layoffs, acceleration of media consolidation, continued decline of local journalism, and rapid uptake of generative AI, the news industry—fundamental to institutional accountability in capitalist democracies—appears to be in deep crisis. Joining Bethany and Luigi to make the case that journalism can not only survive but thrive is Ben Smith, longtime journalist, former New York Times media columnist, co-founder of global digital news publication Semafor, and the author o...

Yes, Journalism Does Have a Future, with Ben Smith

Given the recent mass layoffs, acceleration of media consolidation, continued decline of local journalism, and rapid uptake of generative AI, the news industry—fundamental to institutional accountability in capitalist democracies—appears to be in deep crisis. Joining Bethany and Luigi to make the case that journalism can not only survive but thrive is Ben Smith, longtime journalist, former New York Times media columnist, co-founder of global digital news publication Semafor, and the author o...

Poverty in America: Terrible Scourge or a Measurement Error?

Perhaps the biggest evidence that capitalism in America doesn’t work, at least not for everyone, is growing income inequality and the persistence of poverty. But what is the current state of poverty and inequality in the United States? Why do debates still persist about whether poverty has been eradicated? What do the numbers and official statistics tell us, and should we believe them? What do personal stories and experiences with poverty tell us that data cannot? If poverty has indeed been ...

When a Few Financial Institutions Control Everything, with John Coates

In his recent book, "The Problem of Twelve: When a Few Financial Institutions Control Everything," Harvard law professor John Coates sheds light on the secrecy, lack of public accountability, concentrated power, and the disproportionate influence of a select few institutions in our financial system. Coates joins Bethany and Luigi to dissect the potential dangers of this era of financial consolidation and explore possible solutions, including accountability and transparency, to ensure a more...

Is Short Selling Dead? With Jim Chanos

The Wall Street Journal wrote that “Wall Street's best-known bear is going into hibernation" after the legendary short seller Jim Chanos announced he would close his main hedge funds late last year, in part due to diminishing interest in stock picking. Short selling, which bets on drops in asset prices, wins when companies and governments fail and has gained a predatory reputation over the years. Just last week, the China Securities Regulatory Commission vowed "zero tolerance" against what t...

Manufacturing Influence, with Emily Hund

According to the latest industry statistics, the global influencer economy grew from $1.7 billion in 2016 to $21.1 billion in 2023 — and it's only expected to grow exponentially from here with advances in artificial intelligence. In 1988, Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman investigated how mass media sways audiences to conform to social norms without coercion, or what they called “manufacturing consent.” In her new book, “The Influencer Industry: The Quest for Authenticity on Social Media,” D...

The Capitalisn't of Banking, with Anat Admati

It's been nearly 16 years since the federal government bailed out Wall Street to the tune of $700 billion in response to the financial crisis that precipitated the Great Recession. The idea that the public must guarantee critical financial institutions that are “too big to fail” was controversial then, but does it still remain an issue? Stanford finance professor Anat Admati, whom the New York Times profiled in an article titled "When She Talks, Banks Shudder," argues it’s become worse. Adm...

Ask Luigi Zingales Anything

After two seasons and 163 episodes, Capitalisn’t hosted its first-ever live event late last year. As part of the University of Chicago Podcast Festival, co-host Luigi Zingales fielded questions from three UChicago undergraduate students — Surya Gowda, Mete Bakircioglu, and Giuseppe Di Cera —and an in-person audience in an “Ask Me Anything.”  From the evolution of competition policy to the impact of greener energy sources on prices, from the challenges of regulating the shadow economy to Lui...

Who Controls AI? With Sendhil Mullainathan

The firing, and subsequent rehiring, of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman raises fundamental questions about whose interests are relevant to the development of artificial intelligence and how these interests should be weighed if they hinder innovation. How should we govern innovation, or should we just not govern it at all? Did capitalism "win" in the OpenAI saga? Bethany and Luigi sit down with Luigi’s colleague Sendhil Mullainathan, a professor of Computation and Behavioral Science at Chicago Booth. ...

Raghuram Rajan’s Vision Of An Indian Path To Development

After discussing the trajectory of China's economy earlier this year, Luigi and Bethany turn their attention to the future of another global economic behemoth: India. Joining them is renowned Indian economist Raghuram Rajan, who has a brand-new book out this week, "Breaking the Mould: Reimagining India's Economic Future" (co-authored with Rohit Lamba). In "Breaking the Mould," Rajan and Lamba make the controversial and counterintuitive argument that India should follow an economic developme...

How Big Law Firms Shape Capitalism, With David Enrich

After previously exploring the worlds of 'consultants for sale' and 'scientists for sale,' Luigi and Bethany turn their attention to another broken system of 'enablers' - the world of lawyers for sale. With award-winning investigative journalist David Enrich, they discuss David's latest book, "Servants of the Damned: Giant Law Firms, Donald Trump, and the Corruption of Justice."  Enrich presents several case studies showing how 'Big Law' firms have used their wealth and influence to capture...

The Capitalisn't of Crypto: SBF and Beyond, with Zeke Faux

In his new book "Number Go Up," Bloomberg News investigative reporter Zeke Faux takes readers on a wild ride through the world of cryptocurrency, from its origins in the dark corners of the internet, its meteoric rise to mainstream popularity, and finally its equally precipitous fall.  A few days after the 'convicted' verdict in the trial of beleaguered crypto entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), Faux joins Bethany and Luigi to make a case for why we should judge cryptocurrency by what it ...

When Capitalism Becomes Tyranny, with Sohrab Ahmari

In his new book, Sohrab Ahmari argues that the concentration of economic power in the hands of a few corporations has created a new form of tyranny in America. "Coercion is far more widespread in supposedly noncoercive societies than we would like to think—provided we pay attention to private power and admit the possibility of private coercion," he writes. Ahmari, founder and editor of Compact magazine, joins Bethany and Luigi to discuss his book, "Tyranny Inc.: How Private Power Crushed Am...

The Capitalisn't Of The U.S. COVID Response, With Bethany McLean

In her brand new book, "The Big Fail: What the Pandemic Revealed About Who America Protects and Who It Leaves Behind," Bethany and her co-author Joe Nocera argue that the COVID-19 pandemic was not simply a natural disaster but also a man-made one. Based on rigorous research and compelling storytelling, Bethany, who is renowned for her incisive reporting, reveals uncomfortable truths that have emerged from the pandemic about capitalism, inequality, and corporate power. In this one-on-one con...

Science for Sale, with David Michaels

How does science become public policy? It's not always as straightforward as it might seem. In his book "The Triumph of Doubt: Dark Money and the Science of Deception," leading public health expert and former Clinton/Obama administration official David Michaels shows how corporate interests often "manufacture uncertainty" in order to protect their profits. Using wide-ranging case studies from Big Tobacco, Volkswagen, American football, and talcum-based baby powder, Michaels exposes the disin...

A Conservative Critique Of Capitalism, With Patrick Deneen

In his new book, Regime Change: Toward a Postliberal Future, renowned political philosopher Patrick Deneen argues that the liberal ideology that has shaped capitalism for centuries has also failed to deliver on its promises of freedom, equality, and prosperity. Is he able to offer a compelling alternative that serves the interests of the common good over those of wealthy elites? Deneen, whose previous book "Why Liberalism Failed" was acclaimed by the likes of former U.S. President Obama, jo...

The Most Important Guidelines You Didn’t Know About, With Susan Athey

As companies become increasingly big through mergers and acquisitions -- especially in technology, health care, and several other industries -- how should rules and regulations change with the times? Freshly minted and hot off the press: The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently released an updated set of draft "Merger Guidelines," which could reshape the landscape of corporate mergers and acquisitions both in the U.S. and globally. Esteemed Stanfo...

Key Lessons From The “Chicago Boys” Chile Experiment

Is there a fundamental tension between democratic freedom, economic growth, and social equality? Chilean economist and UCLA Professor Sebastian Edwards joins Bethany and Luigi to discuss his recent book, "The Chile Project: The Story of the Chicago Boys and the Downfall of Neoliberalism." The Chicago Boys were a group of free-market economists trained at the University of Chicago who shaped economic policy and reforms in Chile during General Augusto Pinochet's rule. In the book, Edwards (wh...

The Evolution of Antitrust: From Brandeis To Biden

A wet hot antitrust summer is in the news, mainly because of the Biden administration appointees continuing to take an aggressive approach to enforcement. Why is this important, and how has antitrust thinking evolved over time? In this conversation, Bethany and Luigi draw from his long-standing research and from the Stigler Center's most recent antitrust conference exploring new paradigms of traditional economic ideas. Together, they trace the evolution of antitrust from its fraught foundati...

An Insider's Look At ESG Revisited

Republican presidential candidates, such as Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy, continue to keep ESG in the national conversation. Ramaswamy in particular called it "woke capitalism" in his book and on our podcast. As we take our summer break, we decided to re-release our conversation with Tariq Fancy, BlackRock’s former global chief investment officer for sustainable investing, whose criticism of ESG is based not on its goals, but rather on an insider's knowledge of how it actually works. We...

The Private Equity Debate Revisited

In the last episode of our podcast, we had a mini version of a never-ending debate on this show: whether private equity is good or bad. Afterward we talked about doing a full episode debating the pros and cons of PE until we realized, we’d already done it.  The debate features Jeff Hooke, author of the book "The Myth of Private Equity," and Chicago Booth Professor Steven Kaplan, once referred to by Fortune Magazine as "probably the foremost private equity scholar in the galaxy." We’re taki...

Rebooting American Health Care, with Amy Finkelstein

How can public policy improve upon and fix the mess of U.S. health care? In a new book, health economists Amy Finkelstein (MIT) and Liran Einav (Stanford) argue that's the wrong question. Instead, they suggest we ask: What is it that U.S. health policy should try to accomplish? Finkelstein, also a MacArthur Genius grantee, joins Bethany and Luigi to discuss health care as a social commitment and to make the case for free, automatic, and universal coverage for a basic set of medical services...

Why America's Poor Remain Poor, With Matthew Desmond

"Poverty will be abolished in America only when a mass movement demands it," writes Princeton sociologist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Matthew Desmond in his new book, "Poverty, by America." Building on his own lived experiences of growing up poor and continued contact with impoverished communities that "forces [him] to be intellectually honest," he claims that poverty persists in America not because we are incapable of preventing it but because society - and especially the wealthy - be...

Bonus: Sen. Phil Gramm on Banking Deregulation

Thank you to our listeners for the feedback and engagement on last week's episode with former U.S. Senator Phil Gramm. Sen. Gramm was also one of the co-sponsors of the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act of 1999, which removed part of the Depression-era law separating investment banking from commercial banking, among others. Bethany and Luigi couldn't pass the opportunity to ask the senator about his views on a possible line from his legislation to the 2008 financial crisis and the recent SVB banking me...

Is American Inequality a Myth? With Sen. Phil Gramm

In his recent book "The Myth of American Inequality," former U.S. Senator Phil Gramm (along with co-authors Robert Ekelund and John Early) challenges conventional wisdom on the state of income inequality in the United States. Gramm argues that the gap between the rich and the poor is not as wide as often claimed because it is measured incorrectly, thus biasing public policy debates.  On this episode, he joins Bethany and Luigi to discuss the data and evidence behind his claims, as well as i...

Reinventing Democracy, With Hélène Landemore

What if we harnessed the collective wisdom of the crowds and delegated democratic leadership to the masses? In her book "Open Democracy: Reinventing Popular Rule for the 21st Century", Yale political scientist Hélène Landemore proposes a radically new vision for "what genuine democratic representation means and how we could open up our narrow electoral institutions to ordinary citizens, including via [what she calls] open mini-publics." Drawing from ancient Athenian democracy of the past an...

Is Technological Progress Good For Everyone? With Daron Acemoglu

In his new book, "Power and Progress: Our 1000-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity", renowned MIT Professor of Economics Daron Acemoglu (with co-author Simon Johnson) argues that the benefits from technological progress are shaped by the distribution of power in society.  In this episode, Acemoglu joins Bethany and Luigi to discuss the key challenges of ensuring that this progress benefits everyone, not just the wealthy and powerful. They discuss the rules, norms, and expectations ...

Can Labor Markets Save Capitalism? With David Autor

On this episode, our hosts Bethany McLean and Luigi Zingales sit down with renowned MIT economist David Autor to discuss the impact of technology, labor markets, and immigration on wage inequality and the economy at large. Autor is best known for his work on the "China Shock," the impact of rising Chinese exports on manufacturing employment in the United States and Europe after China's accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001. His most recent work sheds light on which groups have se...

Has ‘Thinking Like An Economist’ Distorted Our Politics?

It is hard to think of an idea more central to capitalism than economics, particularly economic efficiency. Similarly, public policy is now — and has been for a while — conducted in the language of budgets, models, and cost-benefit analyses. But how accountable is this idea to the public? Elizabeth Popp Berman is a sociologist and historian of economic thought at the University of Michigan and the author of the new book "Thinking Like An Economist: How Efficiency Replaced Equality in U.S. P...

Raghuram Rajan: Why The Banking Crisis Isn’t Over

Several questions continue to swirl around the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and its larger implications. In this special episode, Chicago Booth’s Raghuram Rajan – former Governor of the Reserve Bank of India and IMF Chief Economist – joins Bethany and Luigi to explore the risks in the financial system and possible solutions. Rajan discusses a paper he presented (with NYU Professor Viral Acharya) at the Federal Reserve’s Jackson Hole conference in 2022, arguing that the Fed’s liquidity pr...

Are The Twitter Files A Scandal?

Read ProMarket's ongoing coverage of the Twitter Files, including the research summary of the Twitter Files prepared by Stigler Center Research Professional Utsav Gandhi in preparation for this episode Read the Stigler Center's 2019 Report on Digital Platforms, addressing many of the underlying issues discussed in this episode: trust and transparency in social media, business models of journalism, platform regulation when it comes to content moderation, and more.

SVB: The End of Banking as We Know It?

We had initially prepared an entirely different episode for today, but last week's Silicon Valley Bank collapse, the largest in U.S. history since 2008, meant a quick change of plans. What happened? What is unique about this bank run, and what isn't? How much should regulators be blamed, and how much should bank management be? Do social media and today's frantic digital environment mean this is the end of banking as we know it? Luigi and Bethany talk to two experts with unique insights int...

The Capitalisn't Of Consulting: McKinsey And Beyond

Revisit: When the Profit Motive Kills, with Anand Giridharadas, on Capitalisn't Why the US Government Buys Overpriced Services From McKinsey, by Matt Stoller in ProMarket

ProMarket: Why Martin Wolf Changed His Mind on Milton Friedman

Read the following articles in ProMarket: There Is a Direct Line from Milton Friedman to Donald Trump's Assault on Democracy, by Martin Wolf George Stigler and the Challenge of Democracy, by Anat Admati Corporations Are Not “We the People,” by Geoffrey Stone eBook: Milton Friedman 50 Years Later, a Reevaluation Also, check out relevant past Capitalisn't episodes: Martin Wolf: Is Capitalism Killing Democracy? Why Capitalism Needs Democracy The Breaking Point Of Democracy With Morton S...

Martin Wolf: Is Capitalism Killing Democracy?

Read the following articles in ProMarket: There Is a Direct Line from Milton Friedman to Donald Trump's Assault on Democracy, by Martin Wolf George Stigler and the Challenge of Democracy, by Anat Admati Corporations Are Not “We the People,” by Geoffrey Stone eBook: Milton Friedman 50 Years Later, a Reevaluation Also, check out relevant past Capitalisn't episodes: Why Capitalism Needs Democracy The Breaking Point Of Democracy With Morton Schapiro and Gary Morson

Google: The New Vampire Squid? With Dina Srinivasan

  In a Wall Street Journal article about Google’s Secret ‘Project Bernanke,’ Jeff Horwitz and Keach Hagey quoted Google Chief Economist Hal Varian's answer to a question he was asked during the Stigler Center's 2019 Antitrust and Competition Conference. Watch the video excerpt here. "Why Google Dominates Advertising Markets," by Dina Srinivasan, Stanford Technology Law Review, December 2019 Read ProMarket's ongoing coverage of Google here.

The End Of China’s Miracle?

Show notes: On February 9th, 2023, "China’s New Covid Strategy," the next webinar in the Stigler Center's series on China's political economy, will feature Chang-Tai Hsieh, along with Schwarzman Scholars/Harvard Medical School's Joan Kaufman and the Financial Times' Nian Liu (Stigler Center Journalist in Residence, 2021). Register here. Revisit previous webinars hosted by the Stigler Center on China’s political economy and read a summary: https://www.promarket.org/2023/02/02/event-notes-ch...

Shattering Immigration Myths: Data Beyond Borders

Revisiting The Meritocracy Debate With Adrian Wooldridge And Michael Sandel

Capitalisn't will be back in your feeds with a brand new episode on January 19. Don't forget to rate and review our podcast if you haven't already, and leave us a voicemail at https://www.speakpipe.com/Capitalisnt.

He Foresaw Inflation. Here’s What He Expects Next. Feat. Lord Mervyn King

Taylor Swift, Ticketmaster, and Chokepoint Capitalism with Cory Doctorow

Read an excerpt from the book here: https://www.promarket.org/2022/10/03/why-streaming-doesnt-pay/

The "Woke" Capitalism Game With Vivek Ramaswamy

We're taking the holiday off to be with our families, but that doesn't stop the economic news. And there is no story bigger than the collapse of the crypto exchange, FTX. One aspect that attracted our attention was Sam Bankman-Fried, the young CEO of FTX, officially bought into a philosophy called Effective Altruism, where you make the most money to give it to the poor. However, in a text exchange with a Vox reporter SBF said "this dumb game we woke westerns play where we say all the right th...

The Capitalisn't of Elon Musk's Twitter

[Show Notes: During the episode, Luigi mentions the paper of a Stigler Center Fellow. Here is a ProMarket piece describing this research in further detail: https://www.promarket.org/2022/11/10/the-economics-of-content-moderation-on-social-media/]

A Different Story Of Inflation With John Cochrane

In June 2022, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said, "we [now] understand better how little we understand about inflation." So what do we actually know about inflation? In this episode, Luigi and Bethany explore the origins of inflation with John Cochrane, Senior Fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and author of the popular "Grumpy Economist" blog. They discuss Cochrane's new book, "The Fiscal Theory of the Price Level", where he offers a novel understanding of monetary policy by merg...

[Unedited]: Thomas Piketty On Creating A More Equal Society

French economist Thomas Piketty is one of the leading intellectuals documenting inequality, with his 2013 book “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” becoming widely read and cited. His new book, "A Brief History of Equality," is more optimistic: In it, Piketty documents how our world has become relatively more equal since the end of the 18th century. In this unedited conversation, Piketty talks to Bethany and Luigi about the lessons from this movement toward equality and where it could go ne...

Antitrust-Isn't: The Story Of Declining Enforcement In America

Academics and policymakers alike draw a significant correlation between some of today's biggest problems - such as economic inequality - with rising corporate concentration and the ever-decreasing lack of antitrust enforcement. How did this narrative come to be? Is it necessarily correct, and how has it persisted over time? A new paper provides just this data, and it's co-authored by our very own co-host Luigi Zingales, along with Filippo Lancieri, JSD alum, and Eric Posner, Professor, both f...

Capitalism In Our Attention Economy With Albert Wenger

Albert Wenger is Managing Partner at Union Square Ventures, which has invested in some of today's most exciting technology companies. In his new book, “The World After Capital", he argues that capitalism cannot allocate all resources efficiently in the digital age – where the new shortage isn't capital, but rather, human attention. While economically incentivized activities will not go away, he says, we must make room for the things we cannot put a price on. He proposes increasing three freed...

The Student Debt Dilemma With Constantine Yannelis

We’re taking a week off here at the end of the summer, but with Biden’s recent student loan announcement we couldn’t help but think back to our episode about student debt with Constatine Yannelis. Before he was elected, Biden had promised to remove 50K in debt from borrowers. His recent announcement doesn’t quite match that promise, but this episode still contains an incredible amount of vital information about our student debt problem, who really benefits from forgiveness, and what are rea...