Published by University of Chicago Podcast Network
Business
Government
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.
The Republican Party is often associated with free-market fundamentalism, deregulation, and tax cuts. But a new faction on the right is challenging that consensus. In this episode, Bethany and Luigi sit down with Chris Griswold, the Policy Director at American Compass. Drawing on Catholic social teaching, Griswold argues that we need to stop viewing our economy as a force of nature or an end unto itself, but a tool meant to serve human flourishing and dignity. The conversation explores if the traditional neoliberal regime has failed working-class Americans, and whether policy should step in to channel capital toward productive uses. To fix our current system, Griswold argues we need to go back to a first-principles question: What is capitalism, or any economy for that matter, actually for? Connect with us: 📺 Subscribe to our YouTube Channel 📱 Follow Capitalisn’t on Instagram & TikTok ✉️ Email your questions and comments to capitalisntpod@gmail.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Were the foundations of American governance engineered to protect the wealthy? Harvard Law professor Michael Klarman argues that the US Constitution was actually a counter-revolutionary coup to constrain democracy rather than protect it. This episode explores how debt, taxes, and money influenced the drafting of America's founding document. And whether a wealthy elite bypassed democratic institutions to secure their own financial interests and reduce populist power. Connect with us: 📺 Subscribe to our YouTube Channel 📱 Follow Capitalisn’t on Instagram & TikTok ✉️ Email your questions and comments to capitalisntpod@gmail.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Is personal finance rigged against ordinary people? Economists John Campbell and Tarun Ramadorai argue the system rewards the wealthy and financially savvy at the expense of everyone else. Their book Fixed points to a troubling pattern: the fees you avoid by never overdrafting, or by refinancing on time, are paid for by people who don't, and they warn that the resulting resentment is fueling political discontent. But there is a tension at the heart of their argument. They don't want the government running finance or setting prices, yet they call for far more muscular rules. So what exactly are they proposing, and why do they insist it would expand your choices rather than limit them? Connect with us: 📺 Subscribe to our YouTube Channel 📱 Follow Capitalisn’t on Instagram & TikTok ✉️ Email your questions and comments to capitalisntpod@gmail.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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. For decades, the economic consensus treated free trade as an engine for cheaper goods and faster growth. But, Tai argues, this system actually relies on ignored externalities, allowing multinational corporations to reap the benefits of zero regulation while workers and the environment absorb the costs. Zingales goes further, arguing the whole system isn't free trade at all, but something he calls “captured trade”. So who exactly is that trade free for and what exactly is it free from? Tai walks through the hidden machinery most people never see, and what she calls a plan for a worker-centered trade policy. Connect with us: 📺 Subscribe to our YouTube Channel 📱 Follow Capitalisn’t on Instagram & TikTok ✉️ Email your questions and comments to capitalisntpod@gmail.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Corporations are people in the eyes of the law. But how did that happen, and why does it hand them rights you don't have? UCLA law professor Adam Winkler, author of "We the Corporations", traces a 200-year campaign by business to win the constitutional rights of human beings. Bethany McLean and Luigi Zingales press him on what Zingales calls an incredible trick. Corporations insist they're separate from their owners when that shields owners from blame, then argue they're like people when they want to spend on elections or dodge a rule. Winkler traces how the Fourteenth Amendment, written after the Civil War to protect the newly freed, became a tool for railroads and banks instead. He even describes a lawyer who, by his account, lied to the Supreme Court, producing a journal he claimed proved the amendment was meant for corporations. Zingales pushes on what comes next: could AI itself qualify for legal personhood, and would that shield big tech from blame? When we ask Winkler for a shred of hope that the long arc doesn't simply keep favoring business, the answer is far shorter and blunter than expected. Connect with us: 📺 Subscribe to our YouTube Channel 📱 Follow Capitalisn’t on Instagram & TikTok ✉️ Email your questions and comments to capitalisntpod@gmail.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
How does a free, decentralized, volunteer-run encyclopedia produce something more trusted than nearly any for-profit institution? Luigi Zingales and Bethany McLean sit down with Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales to explore how the platform organizes global knowledge. The conversation unpacks how Wikipedia governs itself without a central authority, why consensus beats voting, and what the deliberate vagueness of its rules actually protects against. But is artificial intelligence a looming threat to this system? Wales questions whether these new technologies can actually verify truth without the human feedback loops that correct traditional platforms. Can the community-driven approach of Wikipedia teach the broader business world how to survive an era of deep digital skepticism? Tune in to discover if spontaneous human order is truly the ultimate defense against an automated future. Connect with us: 📺 Subscribe to our YouTube Channel 📱 Follow Capitalisn’t on Instagram & TikTok ✉️ Email your questions and comments to capitalisntpod@gmail.com Enjoying the show? Please leave us a rating and review on your favorite podcast player! Make sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Are stagnant wages the hidden price tag of a broken healthcare system? On this week's Capitalisn't, Yale health economist Zack Cooper tells Bethany McLean and Luigi Zingales that the U.S. healthcare market is failing because of structural flaws like employer-sponsored insurance, which hides true costs from consumers. He argues this opaque system has quietly become one of the leading drivers of income inequality in America. Cooper explains why standard economic principles break down in healthcare: in one of his studies, the average Manhattan patient drives past six cheaper MRI options to reach the one their doctor recommends. He also shows that when premiums rise equally across a workforce, companies are financially incentivized to lay off lower-wage workers to absorb the cost. And when hospitals acquire physician practices, doctor behavior shifts to maximize hospital revenue, significantly increasing rates of expensive, potentially unnecessary procedures like cesarean sections. Looking ahead, Cooper argues the U.S. will soon face a stark choice to control costs. The system must either roll back employer-sponsored insurance to push more people into the individual market, or expand Medicare to bring more of the public under regulated pricing. If you've ever stared at a medical bill and wondered how those numbers got there, this episode is worth a listen. Connect with us: 📺 Subscribe to our YouTube Channel 📱 Follow Capitalisn’t on Instagram & TikTok ✉️ Email your questions and comments to capitalisntpod@gmail.com Enjoying the show? Please leave us a rating and review on your favorite podcast player! Make sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
For the better part of the 20th century, the American economy relied on the steady social peace of "Fordism"—an era of mass production and consumption that helped reconcile capitalism with democracy. Today, a radical new paradigm threatens to upend that equilibrium: "Muskism". While conventional wisdom suggests that Silicon Valley billionaires are libertarians desperate to escape government oversight, historian Quinn Slobodian argues they actually want to achieve state symbiosis by turning the government into a dependent client. This vassalization of the state means private actors absorb critical public functions without any democratic constraints. Discussing insights from his and co-author Ben Tarnoff's new book, Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed , Slobodian unpacks how Elon Musk’s worldview is reshaping the global political economy. This episode also dives into the parallels between American tech supremacy and the Chinese economic model. Slobodian posits that the real vulnerability in the United States is not the excess of regulation that the Abundance agenda focuses on, but rather a failure to discipline capital. Connect with us: 📺 Subscribe to our YouTube Channel 📱 Follow Capitalisn’t on Instagram & TikTok ✉️ Email your questions and comments to capitalisntpod@gmail.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
The US economy looks great on paper: high GDP, low unemployment, and booming markets. So why does it feel like the system is broken for so many people? To unpack the disconnect between macroeconomic data and everyday financial anxiety, we’re joined by Chicago Booth professor Steve Kaplan. A staunch defender of the free market, Kaplan argues that despite our collective pessimism, American capitalism is actually delivering unprecedented prosperity. Are we just looking at the data wrong, or is the market failing us? From the staggering costs of the US healthcare system to the lasting scars of the China labor shock, we debate the deepest fractures in our modern economic framework. Recorded alongside the Stigler Center's economic conference " Can Capitalism Be Popular? " the conversation covers how to actually measure an economic system, the U.S. vs. Europe debate, the opioid crisis, health care lock-in, teachers' unions, UBI, and the core tension of the whole show: if capitalism is working, why doesn't it feel that way? Connect with us: 📺 Subscribe to our YouTube Channel 📱 Follow Capitalisn’t on Instagram & TikTok ✉️ Email your questions and comments to capitalisntpod@gmail.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
For decades, Americans were promised that a college degree guaranteed a secure spot in the middle class. But instead of entering corporate management, many graduates are finding themselves trapped in low-paying service roles with crippling debt. Is this widening gap between expectations and financial realities fundamentally reshaping the modern American workforce? New York Times reporter Noam Scheiber joins the podcast to unpack the core arguments of his new book “Mutiny: The Rise and Revolt of the College-Educated Working Class” about this labor shift. He argues that the psychological injury of these broken promises is sparking a unique wave of workplace activism. The systemic failure of the college wage premium poses urgent questions for the future of American capitalism. If millions of highly educated citizens feel cheated by the system, the resulting political and economic destabilization could be severe. Connect with us: 📺 Subscribe to our YouTube Channel 📱 Follow Capitalisn’t on Instagram & TikTok ✉️ Email your questions and comments to capitalisntpod@gmail.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Economic models have treated the labor market like a perfectly competitive system where wages naturally align with worker value. Arin Dube, economics professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and author of “The Wage Standard”, challenges this long-held assumption. He argues that modern labor markets are riddled with invisible frictions that give employers outsized power over your paycheck. These uneven power dynamics help explain why salaries at the bottom of the distribution have historically stagnated while the broader economy grew. Dube unpacks decades of data to show what actually happens when minimum wages rise, pushing back against the classic warning that wage floors automatically destroy jobs. Instead, he presents evidence suggesting that higher pay can actually reduce turnover and push workers toward more productive companies. Hosts Luigi Zingales and Bethany McLean press Dube on the missing pieces of his labor puzzle. Zingales questions whether Dube is ignoring the massive impact of immigration on the supply and demand for low-wage labor. Meanwhile, McLean digs into the elusive concept of fairness, asking whether outsourced corporate janitors should compare their pay to Wall Street bankers or just to other janitors. Subscribe to our Youtube Channel Follow Capitalisn’t on Instagram & TikTok Send us your questions or comments by emailing capitalisntpod@gmail.com You can find Arin Dube's book "The Wage Standard" here Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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. In her book, “Adam Smith’s America”, Liu reintroduces the famous philosopher as a theorist of power who worried deeply about organized wealth distorting society. She notes that Smith watched early merchants use their disproportionate resources to capture political influence and actively suppress workers. Hosts Luigi and Bethany debate whether early merchant wealth accumulation truly mirrors the massive capital concentration seen in today's corporate landscape. They also explore the argument that reintroducing moral foundations to economic theory might provide a better foundation for capitalism itself. Subscribe to our Youtube Channel Follow Capitalisn’t on Instagram & TikTok Send us your questions or comments by emailing capitalisntpod@gmail.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
We tend to view technological advancement as an unstoppable force that naturally improves our living standards over time. From the printing press to the internet, modern society assumes that groundbreaking ideas will always find their way into the marketplace. However, beneath the surface of our rapid digital expansion, global productivity is actually facing a troubling and persistent slowdown. Many people are beginning to wonder if our relentless push forward is practically sustainable or if we could be approaching a sudden halt. 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. Frey explores the historical tension between decentralized innovation and centralized bureaucracies, suggesting that both the United States and China might be heading toward a period of stagnation. Instead of a guaranteed bright future fueled by artificial intelligence, we face a reality where corporate power and political self-preservation could permanently trap us in the status quo. This conversation digs into whether our modern institutions are robust enough to foster the next wave of human ingenuity or if they are fundamentally designed to suppress it. Listeners will discover exactly how historical empires have stifled their own growth and why those same warning signs are flashing today. Subscribe to our Youtube Channel Follow Capitalisn’t on Instagram & TikTok Send us your questions or comments by emailing capitalisntpod@gmail.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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. Georgetown University Law Professor Steve Vladeck joins Luigi and Bethany to argue that the real culprit isn't just partisan justices, but a complete abdication of responsibility by Congress. Rather than viewing judicial reform as a zero-sum game of packing the court, he proposes that lawmakers must reclaim their constitutional authority to check judicial overreach. He explains how special interest groups have successfully manipulated this power vacuum to reshape American regulations. This perspective completely reframes the crisis from a partisan dispute into a structural collapse of institutional power. This episode explores the hidden mechanisms that allow unaccountable judges to unilaterally rewrite the rules of our economic system, why decades of political complacency allowed this shift and what actionable steps can actually fix it. Vladeck answers whether the business community will ultimately regret enabling a system that erodes the reliable rule of law and why saving our markets may require Congress to finally stand up and do its job. Subscribe to our Youtube Channel Follow Capitalisn’t on Instagram & TikTok Send us your questions or comments by emailing capitalisntpod@gmail.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
As we approach the 250th anniversary of Adam Smith's “ Wealth of Nations" this March, his theories on competition and the invisible hand remain part of the bedrock of modern economics. But, have we undermined those theories in our economy today? Widespread public anger suggests there is a growing belief that our current economic system is fundamentally rigged by those at the top. In many instances, backroom access and elite networking appear to be driving who becomes wealthy and successful instead of meritocratic competition. What would the father of economics think about today's crony capitalism, and what would he make of the so-called "Epstein class"? In this episode, we are joined by British Member of Parliament and author of “Adam Smith: Father of Economics” Jesse Norman. He argues that people often forget Smith deeply distrusted concentrated power, highlighting that Smith was heavily critical of wealth generated from insider knowledge or collusion. Smith condemned these practices precisely because they destroy the genuine competition required for free markets to actually benefit society. Applying this historical lens to current events, co-host Luigi Zingales provocatively asks if the so-called “Epstein Class” embody Adam Smith’s worst fears, coordinating favors to bypass free market competition. Co-host Bethany McLeans debates whether we should call it a class, or if fixating on Epstein is a distraction from the broader systemic corruption threatening capitalism today. Subscribe to our Youtube Channel Follow Capitalisn’t on Instagram & TikTok Send us your questions or comments by emailing capitalisntpod@gmail.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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? In our system, capital is often described as money, machinery, or raw materials. But Columbia Law School professor Katharina Pistor argues that capital is actually a legal invention. An asset, whether it's a plot of land, an idea, or a promise of future pay, only becomes capital when it is given the right legal coding. Pistor suggests that lawyers are the true coders of capitalism. They use the law to "enclose" assets, from land to user data, giving owners the power to exclude others and monetize that value. She argues for injecting principles of "fairness and reciprocity" back into private law, ensuring that contracts aren't just tools for the powerful to extract value from the weak. Luigi Zingales suggests that large corporations have become so powerful we may need a new branch of "quasi-public law" to govern the asymmetry between an individual consumer and a corporate giant. This episode explores the deep, often invisible architecture of our economic system and asks whether we can ever truly tame corporate power without rewriting the rules of the game. Subscribe to our Youtube Channel Follow Capitalisn’t on Instagram & TikTok Send us your questions or comments by emailing capitalisntpod@gmail.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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? On this episode of Capitalisn't , we dive into the murky waters of the American sports betting explosion. We are often told that legalization simply moves an existing black market into the light, but guest Jonathan Cohen argues that the issue isn’t that we legalized the industry—it’s that we did it "recklessly." Cohen, the Policy Lead at the American Institute for Boys and Men and author of Losing Big: America's Reckless Bet on Sports Gambling , joins Bethany and Luigi to outline the serious costs of this rapid liberalization. His data shows that legalized online sports betting is associated with a 25% to 30% increase in personal bankruptcies, a notable rise in auto loan defaults and credit card delinquencies, and increased cases of childhood neglect. Is there a way to fix this market so that it is fair for consumers without imposing such a high degree of societal cost? Host Luigi Zingales suggests a broader solution: a "fiduciary duty" for data collectors. When you give sensitive information to a doctor, accountant, or lawyer, they are bound to use that data only in your interest. If a betting app sees a user's credit card deposits being declined or identifies a pattern of "loss chasing," should they be legally required to act in your interest instead of targeting you with VIP offers? Subscribe to our Youtube Channel Follow Capitalisn’t on Instagram & TikTok Send us your questions or comments by emailing capitalisntpod@gmail.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Is the era of manufacturing-led growth officially over? For decades, the path to a stable middle class was paved through industrialization, but today, even manufacturing giants like China are losing millions of factory jobs to automation. 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. But there’s a problem: we still treat these essential roles as "bottom rung" jobs in terms of pay and respect. Is it possible to elevate a job’s status and pay simply because society needs it to be better? As Rodrik argues, it’s a future we must learn to navigate if we want to preserve a stable society. Subscribe to our Youtube Channel Follow Capitalisn’t on Instagram & TikTok Send us your questions or comments by emailing capitalisntpod@gmail.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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. Joining the conversation is Former Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, Sir Paul Tucker, who complicates the definition of central bank autonomy. If monetary policy is a "latent instrument of taxation," should it be shielded from the King—the executive branch—and reclaimed by the legislature? We explore the provocative argument that the Fed has become dangerously wary of its relationship with Congress, acting as a self-governing entity rather than a delegated authority. Does the U.S. model, where the Fed defines its own version of price stability, explain the accountability gap we see when supervisory failures like the SVB collapse result in zero consequences for leadership? Finally, we address an unsettling mystery regarding the global financial system. If Fed independence is truly degrading, why are the markets so strangely sanguine? Are global investors simply anesthetized by the AI boom, or does the dollar’s global monopoly allow the U.S. to decay without paying an immediate price? We debate whether the market has ceased to be a barometer for institutional health and instead become a tool for protecting shareholder rents—failing to interpret a "catastrophic forecast" until it is already too late. Tucker is also the author of " Unelected Power: The Quest for Legitimacy in Central Banking and the Regulatory State " & " Global Discord: Values and Power in a Fractured World Order ". Subscribe to our Youtube Channel Follow Capitalisn’t on Instagram & TikTok Send us your questions or comments by emailing capitalisntpod@gmail.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Is the American tax code a fair engine for growth, or a "second estate" where the rich choose whether or not to pay? 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. The reality is that the truly rich often have little to no income to tax, living instead on borrowed gains and tax-free inheritances. In this episode, Madoff joins Luigi Zingales and Bethany McLean to discuss her new book "The Second Estate: How The Tax Code Made An American Aristocracy" covering how and why our current tax system allowed the ultra-wealthy to opt out altogether. She argues that to fix the system, we shouldn't just raise rates, we need to bring inheritances and investment gains directly into the income tax system and eliminate the "cover" provided by a broken estate tax. Subscribe to our Youtube Channel Follow Capitalisn’t on Instagram & TikTok Send us your questions or comments by emailing capitalisntpod@gmail.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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