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Is capitalism the engine of destruction or the engine of prosperity? On this podcast we talk about the ways capitalism is—or more often isn’t—working in our world today. Hosted by Vanity Fair contributing editor, Bethany McLean and world renowned economics professor Luigi Zingales, we explain how capitalism can go wrong, and what we can do to fix it. Cover photo attributions: https://www.chicagobooth.edu/research/stigler/about/capitalisnt. If you would like to send us feedback, suggestions f ...
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Big Business is shaping the world in unprecedented ways. Through a series of conversations with today’s best business writers and thinkers, journalist Bethany McLean (co-author of The Smartest Guys in the Room) cuts through the hype and hand-wringing to reframe the stories you thought you understood and uncover the ones you didn’t know were important.
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The Fertility Crisis: Capitalism's Next Challenge, with Sir Niall Ferguson
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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.: I…
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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 financi…
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How Lobbying Led to Crony Capitalism, with Brody Mullins
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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, a…
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Mailbag: UBI, AI, and Does Luigi Believe in "Free Time"?
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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 capitalis…
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Harris vs. Trump: Economics Beyond The "Vibes"
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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 th…
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Can Democracy Coexist With Big Tech? with Marietje Schaake
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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, microchi…
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Universities and Politics: Should They Mix? with Hanna Gray
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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 tuit…
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Raj Chetty's Surprising New Insights On How Children Succeed
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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…
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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 e…
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Dani Rodrik on the New Economics of Industrial Policy
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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 de…
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The Economic Costs of a Phone-Based Childhood, with Jonathan Haidt
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In one of this year's bestselling books, "The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing An Epidemic of Mental Illness," New York University social psychologist Jonathan Haidt argues that today's childhoods spent under the influence of smartphones and overprotective parenting has led to the reported explosion in cases of tee…
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Immigration in America: Data and Myths, Revisited With Leah Boustan
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If democracy is a social contract, why don’t we allow everybody who is willing to sign it? Why don’t we have open borders for immigration? In their book "Streets of Gold: America's Untold Story of Immigrant Success," Princeton University’s Leah Boustan and Stanford University’s Ran Abramitzky provide insights from big data to explore how immigratio…
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Joseph Stiglitz's Vision of a New Progressive Capitalism
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In the last 60 years, few economists have contributed more to exposing the failures of capitalism than Joseph Stiglitz. Formerly the chief economist of the World Bank and chair of the U.S. Council of Economic Advisers under President Bill Clinton, Stiglitz won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2001 for his work showing that the possibility of having …
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Capitalism-Was: What Happened to the American Dream? With David Leonhardt
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Is the famed American Dream still attainable for the immigrants and working class of today? What made America the land of opportunity — and if it isn't the same anymore, what happened to it? Joining co-hosts Bethany and Luigi to discuss these questions is David Leonhardt, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of "Ours Was the Shining Future.…
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The Money Behind Ultra-Processed Foods, with Marion Nestle
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Critics of the food industry allege that it relentlessly pursues profits at the expense of public health. They claim that food companies "ultra-process" products with salt, sugar, fats, and artificial additives, employ advanced marketing tactics to manipulate and hook consumers, and are ultimately responsible for a global epidemic of health ailment…
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Over the last few weeks, university politics has captured headlines as students across the country occupy sections of their campuses and demand that their schools divest from Israel in protest of its contentious war in Gaza. Last week for Compact Magazine, Luigi and Nobel Laureate Oliver Hart stressed that one lesson from these protests is that uni…
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Is Private Credit In The Public Interest? with Jim Grant
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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…
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"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 pu…
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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…
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Poverty in America: Terrible Scourge or a Measurement Error?
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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 statistic…
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When a Few Financial Institutions Control Everything, with John Coates
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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 pot…
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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 …
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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 withou…
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The Capitalisn't of Banking, with Anat Admati
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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 fi…
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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 th…
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