Tolerance, Democracy, and Generosity - Aren't There Some Reasons to Be More Optimistic?

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In the long run, aren't there some reasons to be more optimistic? So if we look at tyan, where medium income has not really gone up since nineteen eighty nine, in real terms, they seem much more tolerant. I was very reluctant then, and i still am, point to these small city states as examples. People often threw up to me singapore as a counter example to what i was talking about. Look, singapore is five million people, something like that. It's really a big city. Tiwan is somewhat larger, i know, but it's a very special situation because of its fear of the chinese. Those societies which are able to mount serious,...

Benjamin Friedman has been a leading macroeconomist since the 1970s, whose accomplishments include writing 150 papers, producing more than dozen books, and teaching Tyler Cowen graduate macroeconomics at Harvard in 1985. In his latest book, Religion and the Rise of Capitalism, Ben argues that contrary to the popular belief that Western economic ideas are a secular product of the Enlightenment, instead they are the result of hotly debated theological questions within the English-speaking Protestant world of thinkers like Adam Smith and David Hume.

Ben joined Tyler to discuss the connection between religious belief and support for markets, what drives varying cultural commitments to capitalism, why the rate of growth is key to sustaining liberal values, why Paul Volcker is underrated, how coming from Kentucky influences his thinking, why annuities don’t work better, America’s debt and fiscal sustainability, his critiques of nominal GDP targeting, why he wouldn’t change the governance of the Fed, how he maintains his motivation to keep learning, his next big project on artificial intelligence, and more.

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Recorded December 4th, 2020 Other ways to connect

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