The Scientific Revolution of the 17th Century

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printing by moveable type late in creating community of scientific practice and knowledge seeking. Back before 1870 there's no possibility at all that humanity is going to be being able to bake economic pie sufficiently large so everyone can have enough. Most of the time when you have a kind of powerfully moving forward set of people thinking about ideas, whether the idea is true is likely to be secondary to whether it will help them keep their place. So, I think to be the best understanding of the 17th century scientific revolution. If indeed you view it as the 17th Century revolution.

Brad DeLong, professor of economics at UC Berkley, OG econ blogger, and Tyler’s Harvard classmate, joins the show to discuss Slouching Towards Utopia, an economic history of the 20th century that’s been nearly thirty years in the making.

Tyler and Brad discuss what can really be gleaned from the fragmentary economics statistics of the late 19th century, the remarkable changes that occurred from 1870-1920, the astonishing flourishing of German universities in the 19th century, why investment banking allowed America and Germany to pull ahead of Britain economically, what enabled the Royal Society to become a force for progress, what Keynes got wrong, what Hayek got right, whether the middle-income trap persists, his favorite movie and novel, blogging vs. Substack, the Slouching Towards Utopia director’s cut, and much more.

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Recorded November 11th, 2022

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