The Myth of the Robber Barons

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Haslitz: "I would say your book accurately describes what people believe about that myth" He says business leaders started mostly in the 1930s and then accelerating towards the 1970s and 80s. The Foundation for Economic Education was created deliberately as an organization to promote pro-market anti-government ideology, he says. Haslitz: These books are not published by academic presses. They do not go through peer review. If they did, most of them would be rejected.

Shermer and Oreskes discuss: the myth of market magic • market fundamentalism • market absolutism • market essentialism • capitalism and democracy • well-regulated vs. poorly regulated capitalism • U.S. Constitution and capitalism • what the founding fathers believed about markets • what Adam Smith really said about markets and capitalism and how economists rewrote Adam Smith • why markets need regulation in the same way sports need rules and referees • rhetorical fallacies of market fundamentalists • child labor laws • bank failures • Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890 • Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman • religion and capitalism • think tanks • collective action problems.

Naomi Oreskes is Professor of the History of Science at Harvard University. Her opinion pieces have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and many other outlets. Her TED talk, “Why We Should Trust Scientists,” was viewed more than a million times. Erik M. Conway is a historian of science and technology and works for the California Institute of Technology. He is the author of seven books and dozens of articles and essays. Their new book is The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market.