162. Benjamin Friedman — Religion and the Rise of Capitalism
The Michael Shermer Show
00:00
The Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection
Gould's punctuate equilibrium is often portrayed as like some revolutionary overturning of darwinism, which he never said it was. Gould: The key proposition that individuals acting on their own self interest can't end up making other people better off. But i thinkth the crux of smith's contribution was precisely to provide a causal story with a mechanism. And what smith showed was that the mechanism was competition carried out in markets. I think that's why smith's book was recognized. It was immediately. Smith died only 14 years after his book was published. He became an celebrity.
Transcript
Play full episode
