The economic approach says that how well we treat each other is a continuous variable and responds to these larger forces. When you have a decline in the number of men relative to women, let's say as a ward that kills a lot of men soldiers, then the power of men goes up. And so that the sex ratio is one of the variables that determine how well people do. But more than that, if you come into a situation with a lot to awful, like a lot of human capital, a lot of earning power, then you can make better choices.
Russ Roberts interviews Gary Becker, of the University of Chicago, on the challenges of being an intellectual maverick, the economic approach to human behavior, the influences of Adam Smith and Alfred Marshall on Becker's work and Becker's optimism for the future of economics.