Paul VanderKlay's Podcast Marcas Shera on Modernity, Consistency and Completeness
Dec 8, 2025
Marcas Shera, an assistant professor of economics and creator of The Econ Playground, discusses intriguing ideas around modernity, economics, and the fragility of rule systems. He explores the tension between consistency and completeness in societal structures, revealing how incompleteness leads to social awkwardness. The duo dives into the implications of modern thinking, including how traditional frameworks are overshadowed by rules-based systems. They touch on capitalism's roots, the importance of cultural underpinnings, and the limits of modern metrics in capturing life's complexities.
02:05:13
Teaching Clarifies Thought
- Teaching forces you to clarify basic ideas you thought you already knew.
- Marcas Shera says explaining foundations reveals hidden gaps in your understanding.
Rules Need Cultural Complements
- Rules express ideals but must work in practice or they fail.
- Shera argues higher ideals need lived culture alongside formal rules.
Consistency Versus Completeness
- Systems trade consistency for completeness.
- More rules increase coverage but raise conflict risk, Shera notes.
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Intro
00:00 • 28sec
Marcas' background and current work
00:28 • 1min
Challenges and rewards of teaching
01:55 • 17sec
Eastern University's history and culture
02:11 • 5min
Rules, ideals and institutional limits
07:00 • 4min
Consistency vs. completeness in systems
10:34 • 8min
Double standards and modernity's allergy
18:32 • 3min
Systems, domains and examples
21:25 • 4min
Incompleteness causes awkwardness
25:35 • 3min
Printing press, state and Protestantism
28:09 • 3min
Modernity: one-system thinking
31:31 • 6min
Newtonian completeness and its limits
37:23 • 1min
Weber, monasteries and capitalism
38:52 • 7min
Social contract and rule generality
45:52 • 6min
Individual abstraction and immigration
51:40 • 41sec
Quakers, rules and community fragility
52:22 • 5min
Science, metrics and probabilistic thinking
57:19 • 8min
Imitation, brain sides and modern leaning
01:05:11 • 2min
Coase, firms and contracts trade-off
01:07:40 • 5min
Liberalism as rules plus liberty
01:12:33 • 2min
Adam Smith on justice and taste
01:14:08 • 3min
Bentham, Mill and system expansion
01:16:40 • 3min
19th-century experiments: monarchs and constitutions
01:20:00 • 8min
Nationalism as modern measurable identity
01:27:32 • 1min
Hayek, markets and resisting arbitrariness
01:28:51 • 4min
20th century experiments and postwar order
01:32:24 • 4min
Liberalism, proceduralism, and moral roots
01:35:58 • 9min
Peterson, meaning and moral realism
01:45:17 • 2min
Postmodern critiques and modern failures
01:47:11 • 2min
Foucault, categories and medicalizing difference
01:48:52 • 3min
Carl Schmitt's emergency critique
01:51:32 • 3min
Hayek's response: culture as brake on dictatorship
01:54:31 • 34sec
Liberalism's central challenge going forward
01:55:05 • 8min
Final reflections on modernity's strengths
02:03:06 • 20sec
Outro
02:03:26 • 2min
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