Capitalisn't

Many people think corporate personhood is the problem behind many issues in law and politics. This guest argues it might actually be the answer.

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.

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.

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?

A recent proposal by Lina Khan, co-chair of Zohran Mamdani's mayoral transition team, to cap the price of beer at stadiums in New York City sparked a debate on X last month. At the center of that debate was Matthew Yglesias, editor and author of the Slow Boring newsletter, who argued that the modern antitrust movement has become "slipshod" and is ignoring basic economic trade-offs in favor of political wins. In this episode, Yglesias joins Luigi and Bethany to discuss his views on the theoretical and practical limitations of the "Neo-Brandeisian" approach to antitrust. He contends that proposals like price caps for complementary goods like stadium concessions reveals a lack of economic rigor, arguing that such measures often result in higher ticket prices rather than consumer savings . He suggests that the movement increasingly attempts to use antitrust law as a universal tool for societal grievances. Bethany and Luigi debate Yglesias on the limits of this modern anti-monopoly movement, arguing that he sounds like a "Chicago economist circa 1970" who assumes markets are always efficient and rational. From the lobbying might of the banking industry to the extractive fees of Amazon, Luigi argues that economic concentration inevitably morphs into political power. He posits that even if consolidated industries remain price-efficient, their size allows for the capture of the regulatory process—citing the banking and tobacco industries as historical precedents. Of course, antitrust enforcement isn't the only proposal on the table to address people's concerns about price levels, as the current excitement around the "affordability" and "abundance" movements demonstrate. But Yglesias argues neither abundance, affordability nor antitrust is going to drive down nominal prices. As he puts it: the only thing that could do that is “a catastrophic depression…but that's not going to make people happier".

Recently, Bethany and Luigi joined economist and wealth inequality expert Branko Milanovic in front of a live audience at the Aspen Ideas Festival to explore how capitalism, democracy, and income inequality interact. Together, the three discussed the pervasiveness of income inequality around the world, its connections with democracy and political stability, if the inequality that really matters is that between countries, and if capitalism and democracy aren't as intricately connected as we thought. As a scholar of China’s economic system, Milanovic discussed how much of the country’s success can even be attributed to capitalism. In the process, the three unpacked if capitalist societies, particularly in the West, are able to address the very inequality they have produced. Are there free-market mechanisms to correct for inequality or does there need to be government intervention? If income inequality poses a dire threat to democracy, what should capitalists do to preserve the institutions that enabled their wealth in the first place? Read a book review of Branko Milanovic's Visions of Inequality: From the French Revolution to the End of the Cold War and how his analysis of class and inequality applies to contemporary America, written by former ProMarket student editor Surya Gowda Also mentioned: Revisit our episode with Thomas Piketty on creating a more equal society and with Martin Wolf: Is Capitalism Killing Democracy?Also revisit our episodes with Sen. Phil Gramm and Matthew Desmond on Poverty in America: Terrible Scourge or a Measurement Error?

Every major technological revolution has come with a bubble: railroads, electricity, dot-com. Is it AI’s turn? With investments skyrocketing and market valuations reaching the trillions, the stakes are enormous. But are we witnessing a genuine revolution—or the early stages of a spectacular crash? Princeton professor Arvind Narayanan joins Luigi Zingales and Bethany McLean to explain why he believes AI’s transformative impact is overstated. Drawing on his book AI Snake Oil, co-authored with Sayash Kapoor, Narayanan argues that capitalism’s incentives can distort technological progress, pushing hype faster than reality can deliver. They examine how deregulation, geopolitical competition, and private control over data shape the trajectory of AI’s development. They also explore what could happen if the bubble bursts: massive market shocks, exposed structural weaknesses in the economy, and a wave of painful restructuring that could echo the dot-com crash—but on a far larger scale. It’s a conversation that cuts through the hype and asks what’s at stake when an entire economy bets on one technology.

Why does a podcast about capitalism want to talk about science? Modern capitalism and science have evolved together since the Enlightenment. Advances in ship building and navigation enabled the Age of Discovery, which opened up new trade routes and markets to European merchants. The invention of the spinning jinny and cotton in the 18th century spurred textile production. The United States’ Department of Defense research and development agency helped create the precursor to the internet. The internet now supports software and media industries worth trillions of dollars. On the flip side, some of America’s greatest capitalists and businesses, including Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and Bell Labs, gave us everything from electricity production to the transistor. Neither science nor capitalism can succeed without the other. However, science’s star is now dimming. Part of this is due to political intervention. In the U.S., the federal government has cut funding for scientific research. The Covid-19 pandemic diminished the public’s trust in scientific experts, which social media has exacerbated through misinformation. Restrictions on immigration may further hamper scientific research as some of the world’s brightest minds lose access to funding and state-of-the-art facilities. But so too has capitalism played a hand in science’s struggles. While corporations sponsor a significant portion of funding for scientific research, this funding too often comes with undisclosed conflicts of interest. Or corporate pressure may influence results in other ways. Stanford University professor John Ioannidis is a physician, writer, and one of the world's most-cited scientists. He studies the methodology and sociology of science itself: how the process and standards for empirical research influence findings in ways that some may find inaccurate. His 2005 essay "Why Most Published Research Findings Are False" is one of the most accessed articles in the history of Public Library of Science (PLOS), with more than three million views. Ioannidis joins Bethany and Luigi to discuss the future of the relationship between capitalism and science, how both will have to respond to contemporary politics, and how one even conceptualizes robust measurements of scientific success.