In 2007, I claimed to get the guests Bruce played a d'Amisquita that increased trade with China would lead to harmony. He looked at me and he said, and what would the evidence for that theory be? And I thought, oh, I guess I don't have any. Well, a lot of people made the claim. It was the dominant claim. But Gerard does not think a shared value system necessarily means harmony because it also increases the amount of competition that the two nations would enter into. The Chinese wouldn't be happy that they're absolutely better, but because their gap has closed down, that the Americans seem even closer to reach. They would almost be more jealous
When the 20-year-old overachiever Johnathan Bi's first startup crashed and burned, he headed to a Zen retreat in the Catskills to "debug himself." He discovered René Girard and his mimetic theory--the idea that imitation is a key and often unconscious driver of human behavior. Listen as entrepreneur and philosopher Bi shares with EconTalk host Russ Roberts what he learned from Girard and Girard's insights into how we meet our primal need for money, fame, and power. The conversation includes the contrasts between economics and Girard's perspective.