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 wa...
Jun 04, 2026•46 min•Season 2Ep. 164
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 ...
May 28, 2026•43 min•Season 2Ep. 163
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...
May 21, 2026•1 hr•Season 2Ep. 162
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 g...
May 07, 2026•56 min•Season 2Ep. 161
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 ...
Apr 23, 2026•1 hr 5 min•Season 2Ep. 160
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 ...
Apr 16, 2026•41 min•Season 2Ep. 159
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 his...
Apr 02, 2026•48 min•Season 2Ep. 158
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 watc...
Mar 26, 2026•31 min•Season 2Ep. 157
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...
Mar 12, 2026•42 min•Season 2Ep. 156
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 Lu...
Mar 05, 2026•50 min•Season 2Ep. 155
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 inste...
Feb 26, 2026•56 min•Season 2Ep. 154
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...
Feb 19, 2026•49 min•Season 2Ep. 153
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 Ins...
Feb 05, 2026•57 min•Season 2Ep. 152
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...
Jan 22, 2026•42 min•Season 2Ep. 151
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 th...
Jan 15, 2026•53 min•Season 2Ep. 150
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 th...
Jan 06, 2026•55 min•Season 2Ep. 149
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 log...
Dec 18, 2025•53 min•Season 2Ep. 148
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 conseque...
Dec 11, 2025•56 min•Season 2Ep. 147
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 theoretica...
Dec 04, 2025•58 min•Season 2Ep. 146
Did you know Amazon makes $37 billion a year— more than double the revenue of all the newspapers in the world combined—from its sponsored results alone? Yes, the same, spammy, sponsored results at the top of a search that bilk shoppers with fake or low-quality items and can starve legitimate businesses of traffic and revenue. This is one of the many insights shared by our guest this week, Tim Wu, in his new book, “The Age of Extraction: How Tech Platforms Conquered the Economy and Threaten Our F...
Nov 20, 2025•1 hr 2 min•Season 2Ep. 145
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 thoug...
Nov 06, 2025•47 min•Season 2Ep. 144
Standard economic theory informs how we think about business strategy and the economy and presumes that people are selfish, have well-defined preferences, and consistently make welfare-maximizing choices. In other words, we are rational. But what if that is not the case? Nobel Prize-winning economist Richard Thaler is out with an updated edition of his bestselling 1991 book, "The Winner's Curse: Paradoxes and Anomalies of Economic Life." In the new edition, he and his co-author Alex Imas (both p...
Oct 30, 2025•46 min•Season 2Ep. 143
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 Say...
Oct 16, 2025•49 min•Season 2Ep. 142
The Japanese economy was once the envy of the world. By the 1980s, it looked set to surpass the United States in size. Real estate prices were high, the stock market was booming—the entire world was asking if Japan had found a superior model of economic growth and recovery after World War II, one grounded in industrial policy. However, the bubble burst in the early 1990s, and what followed was not a quick recession and rebound as we have often seen in the U.S., but decades of stagnation. Near-ze...
Oct 02, 2025•48 min•Season 2Ep. 141
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 int...
Sep 18, 2025•48 min•Season 2Ep. 140
This week, the Trump administration announced it would sell around 5% of mortgage giants and government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The sale would begin to reintroduce the two firms to private markets after 17 years of government conservatorship. The decision to re-privatize two of the largest mortgage firms in the world, and a prominent reason why the United States is one of the only countries where people can get 30-year fixed-rate mortgages, will have enormous imp...
Sep 04, 2025•45 min•Season 2Ep. 139
For decades, private equity has been the darling of pension funds, university endowments, and sovereign wealth funds, promising high returns and low volatility. Now, President Donald Trump has made it possible for everyday investors to get in on the magic with his executive order, "Democratizing Access to Alternative Assets for 401(k) Investors.” The order relieves regulatory burdens that limit the access of defined contribution plans, like 401(k)s, to alternative assets such as private equity (...
Aug 21, 2025•54 min•Season 2Ep. 138
What is the right way, if there is one at all, to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) technology into our education system? For Sal Khan, CEO of one of the world’s largest nonprofit education technology platforms, the answer is to take a step back and ask: Where can AI best complement current pedagogy? If a problem can be solved by pencil and paper, should we really be using AI instead? Khan joins Bethany and Luigi to discuss his recent book, “Brave New Words: How AI Will Revolutionize Educat...
Aug 07, 2025•45 min•Season 2Ep. 137
Americans are often told that they benefit from the privilege of the dollar serving as the world's currency. A strong dollar makes imports cheaper, facilitates demand for American companies, and is tied to cheap government borrowing. But what happens when this powerful privilege weakens? What does it even mean for the dollar to be “strong” or “weak” as a medium of exchange and investment? Why should Americans care that the dollar serves as the reserve currency for the world’s central banks? In h...
Jul 24, 2025•58 min•Season 2Ep. 136
After the 2008 financial crisis, and especially after the COVID pandemic of 2020, an increasing number of Americans are questioning the wisdom of unregulated markets and envisioning a more active role for the state. Scholars have coined a panoply of neologisms to capture this view of the political economy, including political scientist Steven Vogel’s “marketcraft.” The term indicates that the state not only lays the foundation for markets through the protection of the rule of law and property ri...
Jul 10, 2025•49 min•Season 2Ep. 135
