The Growth of Humanity After the Year 150

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Up until the year 150 I think you can say yes, although whether you can actually back that up with numbers you can semi believe in really depends on what you see. There's a fight between the Hyde people who think that Bronze Age empires were much more populous than others did. And afterwards, it seems to me it's not so much two heads are better than one, but rather we find and make much better institutions in fairly discreet steps.

Brad DeLong, professor of economics at UC Berkley, OG econ blogger, and Tyler’s Harvard classmate, joins the show to discuss Slouching Towards Utopia, an economic history of the 20th century that’s been nearly thirty years in the making.

Tyler and Brad discuss what can really be gleaned from the fragmentary economics statistics of the late 19th century, the remarkable changes that occurred from 1870-1920, the astonishing flourishing of German universities in the 19th century, why investment banking allowed America and Germany to pull ahead of Britain economically, what enabled the Royal Society to become a force for progress, what Keynes got wrong, what Hayek got right, whether the middle-income trap persists, his favorite movie and novel, blogging vs. Substack, the Slouching Towards Utopia director’s cut, and much more.

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Recorded November 11th, 2022

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