Every era runs on an economic story. For the last half-century, ours has been neoliberalism — the belief that if you free markets from constraints, prosperity will follow.

This week we revisit a bracing conversation with historian Gary Gerstle about how neoliberalism took hold, why it once felt inevitable, and why it’s now breaking down in plain sight. Drawing on his book The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order, Gerstle joins Nick and Goldy to trace how a seductive promise of “freedom” — economic, cultural, and political — helped neoliberalism crowd out the New Deal order, even as it hollowed out communities, deepened inequality, and set the stage for today’s volatility. Along the way, they explore how economic crises create openings for new ideas, why the collapse of an old order is never smooth, and what it will take to build a post-neoliberal, middle-out economy that actually delivers for working people.

Gary Gerstle is an author, historian, and scholar of American political and economic history. He is the Paul Mellon Professor of American History Emeritus at the University of Cambridge and a Professor Emeritus of History at Vanderbilt University.