Capitalisn't

University of Chicago Podcast Network

We investigate how capitalism is—or more often isn’t—working in our world today.

Hosted by economist Luigi Zingales and business journalist Bethany McLean, our podcast explains why capitalism can go wrong and what we can do to fix it.

Send us your questions or comments by emailing capitalisntpod@gmail.com

Cover photo attributions: https://www.chicagobooth.edu/research/stigler/about/capitalisnt.

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247 episodes
Updated Thursday

Episodes247

Newest first

Apr 3, 2025 · 37 min
Is Silicon Valley Turning Fascist?
Silicon Valley’s traditionally Democratic tech leaders are turning toward President Donald Trump, but are the reasons as straightforward as lower taxes and favorable regulations? Perhaps not, if we consider the influence of a convoluted political philosophy called the “Dark Enlightenment.” Washington and Silicon Valley power players, including Vice President JD Vance, Steve Bannon, Peter Thiel, and Marc Andreessen, have all cited the philosophy’s ideas and one of its leading developers, Curtis Y
Mar 20, 2025 · 45 min
Why Trump Is Deregulating In The Wrong Way, with Sam Peltzman
In President Donald Trump's recent joint address to Congress, he said, "To unshackle our economy, I have directed that for every one new regulation, ten old regulations must be eliminated." Elon Musk, whom Trump has assigned to execute this vision, has argued that it is time to get rid of all regulations, or as Musk said, “regulations, basically, should be default gone.” Joining Bethany and Luigi to discuss this intensified commitment to deregulation and laissez-faire capitalism is Sam Peltzman
Mar 6, 2025 · 49 min
Trump’s War on Universities, with Nicholas Dirks
Skyrocketing costs of attendance, declining enrollment, the advent of artificial intelligence, campus debates about free speech, and a crackdown on diversity initiatives: Today's universities are in a pickle. Adding to this pickle are President Trump's threats and actions on slashing research funding — the financial lifeline of modern universities. Last month, the Chronicle of Higher Education highlighted a new survey of a diverse group of university presidents who were asked if they “believe th
Feb 20, 2025 · 44 min
Did NIMBYs Kill the American Dream?, with Yoni Appelbaum
“Homeownership is the American Dream.” This saying is so ingrained in our zeitgeist that most Americans don't even pause to question it. However, according to the Black Knights Home Price Index, the average US home price increased nearly 80% from April 2015 to April 2023. Census data reveals that the median household income only increased by 4% during this period. Homeownership has thus become increasingly out of reach, especially for young professionals. So, how did the American Dream become an
Feb 13, 2025 · 49 min
Can AI Even Be Regulated?, with Sendhil Mullainathan
This week, Elon Musk—amidst his other duties of gutting United States federal government agencies as head of the “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE)—announced a hostile bid alongside a consortium of buyers to purchase control of OpenAI for $97.4 billion. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman vehemently replied that his company is not for sale. The artificial intelligence landscape is shifting rapidly. The week prior, American tech stocks plummeted in response to claims from Chinese company DeepSeek AI
Jan 30, 2025 · 45 min
Why This Nobel Economist Thinks Bitcoin Is Going to Zero, with Eugene Fama
In December 2024, Bitcoin, one of the earliest cryptocurrencies and undoubtedly the most famous, hit $2 trillion in market capitalization, bigger than Tesla, Meta, and Saudi Aramco. In this episode, Nobel Prize-winning economist and Chicago Booth finance professor Eugene Fama—widely considered the “Father of Modern Finance”—predicts it will go to zero within ten years. Legendary investor Ray Dalio called crypto a bubble a decade ago; now, he calls it “one hell of an invention.” Larry Fink of Bl
Jan 16, 2025 · 47 min
Should Companies Have A Social Responsibility To Be “Great Businesses”?, with John Kay
The public often imagines corporations as self-contained actors that provide a set of goods and services to consumers. Underpinning this image have been ideas of ownership, rights to capital and intellectual property, and corporate responsibility to stakeholders including consumers, workers, and shareholders. But what if almost everything we are told about the essence of the firm is wrong? So writes Sir John Kay, a British economist, corporate director, and longstanding fellow of St John’s Colle
Jan 2, 2025 · 49 min
How Big Money Changed The Democratic Game, with Daniel Ziblatt
Daniel Ziblatt is an American political scientist, Eaton Professor of the Science of Government at Harvard University, and the co-author (with Steven Levitsky) of several bestselling books, including How Democracies Die and Tyranny of the Minority. Ziblatt writes from the position that what defines strong democracies is free and fair competition for power, inclusive participation, and a package of civil liberties that make those first two conditions possible. 2024 saw voters in more than 60 cou
Dec 19, 2024 · 49 min
America’s Addiction to Easy Money, with Ruchir Sharma
Are bailouts the new “trickle-down” economics? Have government debt and deficits caused capitalism’s collapse—thus ending the American Dream? Ruchir Sharma is a well-known columnist for the Financial Times, the author of bestselling books Breakout Nations and The Rise and Fall of Nations, and an investment banker who worked as Morgan Stanley’s head of emerging markets for 25 years. His new book, What Went Wrong With Capitalism, traces the roots of current disaffection with our capitalist econom
Dec 5, 2024 · 47 min
The Argentinian DOGE
A new U.S. Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is headed by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. Its goals include administrative reductions, cost savings, regulatory cutbacks, and reducing federal spending by nearly $2 trillion. President-elect Donald Trump has called DOGE the "Manhattan Project of our time," and has indicated that DOGE will reduce regulatory burdens to firms and individuals. But is the act of cutting rules and regulations the same as cutting spending? Does it unleash the econ
Nov 21, 2024 · 45 min
The Fertility Crisis: Capitalism's Next Challenge, with Sir Niall Ferguson
For years, the world worried about overpopulation and our capacity to sustain ever-increasing numbers of people. Now, the worry is underpopulation—and recent numbers are stunning. Fertility rate is the average number of children that are born to a woman over her lifetime. According to the United Nations, this number is currently 1.64 in the U.S.: If it stays this way, in three generations there will only be half as many young Americans as there are today, holding immigration constant. In China,
Nov 7, 2024 · 47 min
Visa's Hidden Tax on Americans
While Americans rely on debit transactions for the necessities of life, most are unaware of the networks that drive those transactions, nor are they aware that one company, Visa, has monopolized debit transactions, penalized industry participants that seek to use alternative debit networks, and co-opted innovators, technology companies, and financial institutions to forestall or snuff out threats to Visa's debit network dominance.” So begins the monopolization lawsuit filed on September 24 by th
Oct 24, 2024 · 43 min
How Lobbying Led to Crony Capitalism, with Brody Mullins
As the United States elections draw near, everyone is wondering who will take control of Washington next. In this week’s Capitalisn’t episode, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Brody Mullins reveals how the real winner will be neither Democrats nor Republicans. Rather, it will be the lobbyists. Mullins is the co-author (along with his brother Luke, also an investigative reporter) of The Wolves of K Street: The Secret History of How Big Money Took Over Big Government. Brody joins Bethany and Luigi
Oct 10, 2024 · 37 min
Mailbag: UBI, AI, and Does Luigi Believe in "Free Time"?
You asked and we answered: Over the last year, we have solicited listeners’ questions via voicemail, email, and social media. In this episode, our producer, Matt, turns the tables on Bethany and Luigi and puts them in the hot seat to answer your burning questions in an Ask Me Anything “AMA” format. How do Bethany and Luigi actually define capitalism? Does universal basic income disincentivize work? Does the adoption of artificial intelligence mean we need to rethink economics? What would Bethan
Oct 3, 2024 · 40 min
Harris vs. Trump: Economics Beyond The "Vibes"
Last week, United States presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump delivered hour-long speeches outlining their economic policies for the country if they win in November. This week on a special episode of Capitalisn’t, Bethany and Luigi weigh in on the candidates’ economic proposals. What makes this discussion particularly urgent is that neither candidate is espousing a traditional Republican or Democratic platform. Further, despite the length of their respective speeches, there wer
Sep 26, 2024 · 45 min
Can Democracy Coexist With Big Tech? with Marietje Schaake
International technology policy expert, Stanford University academic, and former European parliamentarian Marietje Schaake writes in her new book that a “Tech Coup” is happening in democratic societies and fast approaching the point of no return. Both Big Tech and smaller companies are participating in it, through the provision of spyware, microchips, facial recognition, and other technologies that erode privacy, speech, and other human rights. These technologies shift power to the tech companie
Sep 12, 2024 · 46 min
Universities and Politics: Should They Mix? with Hanna Gray
America’s universities have powered its economy by developing an educated workforce and producing transformative technology, including the internet and vaccines. They were seen as vehicles for social mobility; when veterans returned home from World War II, the newly enacted G.I. Bill compensated millions with paid college and vocational school tuition. However, universities today are bloated and expensive, losing the public's trust, and have become a battleground for controversial culture wars.
Aug 29, 2024 · 51 min
Raj Chetty's Surprising New Insights On How Children Succeed
Is race a more consequential determinant of social mobility than class? How and under what circumstances do Americans move up the economic ladder? For years, Harvard economist Raj Chetty has leveraged big data to answer these questions. In his recent paper, Chetty and his team show that Black millennials born to low-income parents have more quickly risen up the economic ladder than previous Black generations, whereas their white counterparts have fared worse than previous low-income white gener
Aug 15, 2024 · 51 min
The End of Google As We Know It?
This week we're taking a quick summer break, but in the meantime, we wanted to re-share a special episode that is relevant in the news again. With the recent federal court ruling that Google engaged in illegal monopolization of internet searches, we thought it would be a great opportunity to share our episode with lawyer Dina Srinivasan. She's an expert in the field of competition policy and a fellow with the Thurman Arnold Project at Yale University. Google is no stranger to lawsuits and has pr
Aug 1, 2024 · 45 min
Dani Rodrik on the New Economics of Industrial Policy
Harvard professor of international political economy Dani Rodrik has long been skeptical of what he calls "hyperglobalization," or an advanced level of interconnectedness between countries and their economies. He first introduced his theory of the "globalization trilemma" in the late 1990s, which states that no country can simultaneously support democracy, national sovereignty, and global economic integration. At the time when he proposed his trilemma, Rodrik was considered an outcast. However,

Capitalisn't

Is Silicon Valley Turning Fascist?

Why Trump Is Deregulating In The Wrong Way, with Sam Peltzman

Trump’s War on Universities, with Nicholas Dirks

Did NIMBYs Kill the American Dream?, with Yoni Appelbaum

Can AI Even Be Regulated?, with Sendhil Mullainathan

Why This Nobel Economist Thinks Bitcoin Is Going to Zero, with Eugene Fama

Should Companies Have A Social Responsibility To Be “Great Businesses”?, with John Kay

How Big Money Changed The Democratic Game, with Daniel Ziblatt

America’s Addiction to Easy Money, with Ruchir Sharma

The Argentinian DOGE

The Fertility Crisis: Capitalism's Next Challenge, with Sir Niall Ferguson

Visa's Hidden Tax on Americans

How Lobbying Led to Crony Capitalism, with Brody Mullins

Mailbag: UBI, AI, and Does Luigi Believe in "Free Time"?

Harris vs. Trump: Economics Beyond The "Vibes"

Can Democracy Coexist With Big Tech? with Marietje Schaake

Universities and Politics: Should They Mix? with Hanna Gray

Raj Chetty's Surprising New Insights On How Children Succeed

The End of Google As We Know It?

Dani Rodrik on the New Economics of Industrial Policy