Capitalisn't

Avsnitt

• Our Personal Finance Mistakes Are The Industry's Profits - ft. John Campbell & Tarun Ramadorai 02.07.2026 49min

  Is personal finance rigged against ordinary people? Economists argue the system rewards the wealthy and financially savvy at the expense of everyone else.
• Was Free Trade Ever Really Free? - ft. Fmr. Biden Trade Rep. Katherine Tai 18.06.2026 51min

  Free trade was never actually free? That's the case Katherine Tai, Joe Biden's former U.S. Trade Representative, brings Bethany McLean and Luigi Zingales this week.
• Why Corporations Always Win At The Supreme Court - ft. Adam Winkler 04.06.2026 46min

  Many people think corporate personhood is the problem behind many issues in law and politics. This guest argues it might actually be the answer.
• You Can't Buy Trust - ft. Wikipedia Co-Founder Jimmy Wales 28.05.2026 43min

  How does a free, decentralized, volunteer-run encyclopedia produce something more trusted than nearly any for-profit institution?
• Is Healthcare Making Capitalism Sick? - ft. Zack Cooper 21.05.2026 1h

  Are stagnant wages the hidden price tag of a broken healthcare system? On this week's Capitalisn't, Yale health economist Zack Cooper argues that the U.S. healthcare market is failing because of structural flaws like employer-sponsored insurance, which hides true costs from consumers.
• How “Muskism” Is Changing American Capitalism - ft. Quinn Slobodian 07.05.2026 55min

  Conventional wisdom suggests that Silicon Valley billionaires are libertarians trying to escape government oversight, but Quinn Slobodian argues they actually want to achieve state symbiosis by turning the government into a dependent client.
• Is Capitalism Delivering For The Majority? - ft. Steve Kaplan 23.04.2026 1h 5min

  High GDP, low unemployment, and booming markets...so why does it feel like the system is broken for so many people?
• Is The College Promise Broken? - ft. Noam Scheiber 16.04.2026 41min

  Instead of corporate management, many college grads are finding themselves in low-paying service roles. Is this widening gap between expectations and realities reshaping the modern American workforce?
• The Real Cause Of Wage Stagnation - ft. Arin Dube 02.04.2026 47min

  Economist Arin Dube argues that modern labor markets are riddled with invisible frictions that give employers outsized power over your paycheck.
• Is Everyone Getting Adam Smith Wrong? - ft. Glory Liu 26.03.2026 31min

  Most people associate Adam Smith with free markets and “the invisible hand”. But does this conventional narrative purposefully ignore Smith’s deep suspicions about monopolies and power? Georgetown assistant professor Glory Liu argues this narrow interpretation is actually a deliberate historical reconstruction.
• Why Human Progress Is Not Inevitable - ft. Carl Frey 12.03.2026 41min

  In this episode, Oxford Professor Carl Frey joins the podcast to share the unsettling message of his new book, “How Progress Ends”. He argues that technological progress is far from inevitable and can easily reverse when entrenched institutions block new ideas from transforming society.
• The Hidden Economic Dangers Of Supreme Court Overreach - ft. Steve Vladeck 05.03.2026 50min

  For decades, Americans viewed the Supreme Court as an impartial referee standing above the political fray. However, public trust in this vital institution has recently plummeted to historic lows. Many observers blame a surge in ideological rulings that align with the party of the President who appointed each justice. If the referee is suddenly wearing a team jersey, the fundamental systems of democracy and capitalism begin to break down.
• Adam Smith In The Age of The “Epstein Class” - ft. MP Jesse Norman 26.02.2026 55min

  What would the "father of economics" think about today's crony capitalism, and what would he make of the so-called "Epstein class"?
• How Inequality Distorts the Law - ft. Katharina Pistor 19.02.2026 48min

  If we want to understand why capitalism feels broken, do we need to stop looking at the economy and start looking at the legal code that underpins it?
• Are Betting Apps Engineered for Addiction? - ft. Jonathan Cohen 05.02.2026 56min

  If a sports betting app has the data to know exactly when a user is struggling financially, should it have a legal duty to cut that person off?
• Can We Build a Middle Class Without Factories? - ft. Dani Rodrik 22.01.2026 41min

  Is the era of manufacturing-led growth officially over? In this episode, Bethany McLean and Luigi Zingales sit down with Dani Rodrik, Ford Foundation Professor of International Political Economy at Harvard and author of Shared Prosperity in a Fractured World. Rodrik argues that we have "no other choice" but to look toward the service sector to anchor our future economy.
• Who Should The Fed Answer To? - ft. Sir Paul Tucker 15.01.2026 53min

  Is the Federal Reserve’s independence a pillar of democracy or a convenient shield that allows elected officials to duck their responsibilities? This week on Capitalisn’t, we confront a shift in Washington after the Justice Department served subpoenas on the Fed.
• How To Fix The American Tax System - ft. Ray Madoff 06.01.2026 54min

  We are often told that the top 1% of earners already pay 40% of all taxes, while nearly half of Americans pay nothing at all. Legal scholar Ray Madoff argues that this statistic is a deliberate "bait-and-switch" designed to confuse the public.
• How Capitalism Became Global ft. Sven Beckert 18.12.2025 52min

  Is capitalism a force of nature, or a human-made order that we have the power to shape? In this episode, Luigi and Bethany sit down with Sven Beckert, a Harvard historian and author of the new book A Global History of Capitalism, to tackle a question that seems basic but remains surprisingly difficult to answer: what exactly is capitalism? Beckert argues that capitalism is not defined simply by the existence of markets—which are found in all human societies—but rather by a specific economic logic of privately owned capital productively invested to produce more capital. He challenges the popular narrative that capitalism and the state are antithetical, suggesting instead that the state has been constitutive of capitalism throughout its history, from the colonization of the Americas to the industrial expansion of the 19th century. Beckert also argues that capitalism is fundamentally "undogmatic", pointing out that it has thrived under radically different political systems from the British Empire and the slave plantations of the Caribbean to modern liberal democracies and authoritarian city-states. Rather than existing in opposition to the state, does capitalism actually rely on state power to construct markets and enforce the expansion of its logic?
• How to Stop “Ensh*ttification” Before It Kills the Internet - ft. Cory Doctorow 11.12.2025 56min

  There’s a word that’s gained a lot of popularity in the last year: “ensh*ttification”. It refers to a trajectory many see with digital platforms: they initially offer immense value to users, only to systematically degrade that quality over time in order to extract maximum surplus for shareholders. We invited the coiner of this term, science fiction author and activist Cory Doctorow, on the podcast to discuss whether he thinks this decline is an inevitable feature of digital markets or a consequence of specific policy failures. And, most importantly, how he thinks it could be reversed. For Doctorow, "enshittification" is not simply a result of "revealed preferences", where users tolerate worse service because they value the platform, but rather the outcome of a regulatory environment that has permitted the creation of high switching costs and the elimination of competitors. Doctorow also argues that historically, interoperability acted as an engine of dynamism, allowing new entrants to lower the barriers to entry. But current IP frameworks, such as anti-circumvention laws, have been "weaponized" to prevent this, effectively allowing firms to enforce cartels and engage in rent-seeking behavior. Finally, Doctorow offers a critical assessment of the current AI boom, arguing that the sector is creating "reverse centaurs", where human labor is conscripted to correct algorithmic errors, and warns of a potential asset bubble driven by inflated revenue attribution.