The Transformation of the 19th Century

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A, dickens loved the energy of london. He used to take what were called midnight walks. Night walks through the city, hes restless person, sometimes couldn't sleep. And he saw businesses as a the salvation of people,. Giving them things to work on and give giving them activities to get involved in. A, it's absolutely, he was, dickens was excited by the times in which he was living. But you can't say that, a, Dickens was a, a sot of a documentarian of a misery in the nineteenth century. That's just, that's just not correct.

Edmund Phelps of Columbia University, Nobel Laureate in economics, and author of Mass Flourishing talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the ideas in the book. Phelps argues that human flourishing requires challenges, struggles, and success and goes beyond material prosperity. He argues that in recent decades, policy has discouraged innovation and mass flourishing resulting in a slow-down in growth rates. Phelps emphasizes the non-material benefits of economic growth and the importance of small innovations over big inventions as key to that growth.