Capitalisn't

Hosted by University of Chicago Podcast Network

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248

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Aug 2026

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About the show

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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60 recent

August 13, 202653 min

Can Liberalism Survive This Kind of Capitalism? - ft. Daron Acemoglu

For most of the last century liberal democracies offered a simple deal: the economy grows and, if you work hard, you get a fair shot at the rewards. According to 2024 Nobel Prize-winning economist Daron Acemoglu, that deal is broken. Acemoglu joins Bethany McLean and Luigi Zingales to discuss his new book, What Happened to Liberal Democracy?, and why the system that delivered unprecedented freedom and prosperity abandoned the working class in favor of the college-educated elite. Acemoglu makes the case that things will only get worse as AI is being designed to replace human labor, driving wage stagnation and economic anxiety. But he thinks we can still turn things around, and he brought his solutions to our podcast. 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.

August 6, 202648 min

How Washington Privatized The Capital Market - ft. Renée Jones

Amazon went public three years after it was founded. SpaceX stayed private for 24 years. What changed and why does it matter? The standard story is that companies avoid an IPO because public markets carry too many government rules and too many lawyers looking to sue. Renee Jones, law professor, former SEC official, and author of the new book Untamed Unicorns: Why Startup Finance Is Broken and How to Fix It, makes the opposite case. Jones argues what changed was the deregulation of private markets, driven by decades of industry lobbying. Due to decisions in Washington, companies became able to raise billions privately and there was no reason to go public . You could get the capital and keep total control, without ever having to disclose anything to regulators. If you've never bought a share of a startup, you might assume none of this touches you. But most of the money flowing into these private markets comes from pension funds and retirement accounts, meaning ordinary savers are already invested in companies whose books they'll never see. 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.

July 30, 202646 min

A Conservative's Attack On Neoliberalism - Ft. Chris Griswold

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.

July 16, 202650 min

Was The Constitution An Anti-Democratic Coup? - ft. Michael Klarman

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.

July 2, 202649 min

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

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.

June 18, 202651 min

Was Free Trade Ever Really Free? - ft. Fmr. Biden Trade Rep. Katherine Tai

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.

June 4, 202646 min

Why Corporations Always Win At The Supreme Court - ft. Adam Winkler

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.

May 28, 202643 min

You Can't Buy Trust - ft. Wikipedia Co-Founder Jimmy Wales

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.

May 21, 20261 hr 0 min

Is Healthcare Making Capitalism Sick? - ft. Zack Cooper

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.

May 7, 202655 min

How “Muskism” Is Changing American Capitalism - ft. Quinn Slobodian

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.

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