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

Oct 19, 2023 · 42 min
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 convers
Oct 5, 2023 · 54 min
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 disinform
Sep 21, 2023 · 58 min
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, joins
Sep 7, 2023 · 1 hr 2 min
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 Stanford p
Aug 31, 2023 · 54 min
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 (who al
Aug 17, 2023 · 45 min
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 foundations
Aug 10, 2023 · 52 min
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’re
Jul 27, 2023 · 1 hr
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 taking a
Jul 13, 2023 · 47 min
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. Sh
Jun 29, 2023 · 54 min
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 - benefi
Jun 22, 2023 · 19 min
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 meltdo
Jun 15, 2023 · 50 min
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 impli
Jun 1, 2023 · 47 min
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 and th
May 18, 2023 · 52 min
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 arou
May 4, 2023 · 50 min
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 seen t
Apr 20, 2023 · 48 min
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. Publi
Apr 6, 2023 · 37 min
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 provi
Mar 30, 2023 · 41 min
Are The Twitter Files A Scandal?
On this episode, Bethany and Luigi discuss the recent release of the "Twitter Files" – a collection of internal Twitter documents released publicly by new CEO Elon Musk that reveal the company's internal processes and policies for dealing with controversial content, including contentious public health information and political revelations. Despite the potential significance of these documents, they have received relatively little coverage from the mainstream media. Our hosts debate and discuss
Mar 16, 2023 · 53 min
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 into t
Mar 2, 2023 · 50 min
The Capitalisn't Of Consulting: McKinsey And Beyond
Any discussion about the costs and benefits of capitalism is incomplete without a conversation about the costs and benefits of consulting, especially global consulting behemoth McKinsey & Company. The firm has consulted with over 2000 institutions — ranging from Presidents to CEOs, including 90 of the top 100 corporations worldwide, and acted as an accelerant to nearly every trend in the global economy. But, do consultants make the world a better place, or is their advice solely geared towards m

Capitalisn't

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

Science for Sale, with David Michaels

A Conservative Critique Of Capitalism, With Patrick Deneen

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

Key Lessons From The “Chicago Boys” Chile Experiment

The Evolution of Antitrust: From Brandeis To Biden

An Insider's Look At ESG Revisited

The Private Equity Debate Revisited

Rebooting American Health Care, with Amy Finkelstein

Why America's Poor Remain Poor, With Matthew Desmond

Bonus: Sen. Phil Gramm on Banking Deregulation

Is American Inequality a Myth? With Sen. Phil Gramm

Reinventing Democracy, With Hélène Landemore

Is Technological Progress Good For Everyone? With Daron Acemoglu

Can Labor Markets Save Capitalism? With David Autor

Has ‘Thinking Like An Economist’ Distorted Our Politics?

Raghuram Rajan: Why The Banking Crisis Isn’t Over

Are The Twitter Files A Scandal?

SVB: The End of Banking as We Know It?

The Capitalisn't Of Consulting: McKinsey And Beyond