247 | Samuel Bowles on Economics, Cooperation, and Inequality
Aug 21, 2023
auto_awesome
In this discussion, economist Samuel Bowles shares insights on the evolution of cooperation and economic inequality. He highlights how human behavior shapes economic systems and critiques traditional self-interest models, introducing the significance of altruism. Bowles also reassesses neoliberalism, examining its shortcomings revealed by the 2008 financial crisis. Additionally, he delves into free-riding in historical contexts and its implications for modern challenges like climate change, advocating for community cooperation over top-down solutions.
Economics is a story of collective behavior influenced by complicated human beings with their own goals and limitations.
Donations can have significant impact when based on evidence-backed high-impact giving opportunities like those recommended by GiveWell.
A more nuanced understanding of human motivation and social dynamics is essential to economic analysis.
Deep dives
The Importance of Finding Great Talent First with Indeed
In the podcast episode, the speaker emphasizes the significance of not waiting for great talent to find you when it comes to hiring. Instead, the speaker suggests using Indeed, a hiring platform that allows employers to attract, interview, and hire candidates all in one place. By taking the proactive approach of finding talent first, employers can have a greater chance of attracting qualified individuals to their organizations.
The Impact of Donations and Evidence-Based Giving
The podcast episode delves into the question of how much impact donations can actually have. It highlights the organization GiveWell, which conducts research on evidence-backed high-impact giving opportunities. GiveWell recommends a select few charitable organizations that have been thoroughly researched over 15 years. The speaker mentions that over 100,000 donors have used GiveWell to donate more than $1 billion, emphasizing the importance of making meaningful contributions to help the global poor.
The Evolutionary Perspective on Human Behavior and Economic Systems
The podcast episode explores the intersection of human behavior, economic systems, and evolutionary biology. The guest, Samuel Bowles, discusses how economic theory often assumes individuals are purely self-interested. However, he presents evidence from experiments conducted by economists that reveal the existence of altruistic and reciprocal behaviors. Bowles also provides insights from his research on the evolution of altruism, arguing that group selection and genetic predispositions may play a role in shaping human behavior. This challenges traditional economic models and highlights the need to incorporate a more nuanced understanding of human motivation and social dynamics into economic analysis.
The Power of Neoliberalism and the Need for a New Paradigm
The podcast explores the dominance and success of the neoliberal economic paradigm, which integrated powerful moral intuitions about liberty and self-determination with a model of the economy that emphasized individual freedom and market efficiency. However, the financial crisis in 2008 and growing inequalities have exposed the limitations of this paradigm. The episode suggests the need for a new policy paradigm that combines a model of the economy that recognizes the importance of moral principles with economic theories that accurately represent the complexities of the modern economy.
Understanding Human Behavior and Dealing with Free Riders
The podcast delves into the importance of understanding human behavior in economic models. It discusses Adam Smith's conception of self-interest and the role of markets in organizing society. It also explores the phenomenon of free riders and highlights the use of punishment as a means to ensure cooperation in public goods games. The episode suggests that mobilizing moral pressures within communities can effectively address free rider problems and foster cooperation in modern economies where contracts and government regulations are insufficient.
Economics, much like thermodynamics, is a story of collective behavior arising from the interactions of many individual constituents. The big difference is that in economics, the constituents are themselves complicated human beings with their own goals and limitations. We can still make progress by positing some simple but plausible axioms governing human behavior, and proving theorems about what those axioms imply, such as the famous supply-and-demand curves. The trick is picking the right axioms that actually do apply to any given situation. Samuel Bowles is a highly regarded economist who has helped understand the emergence of political hierarchy and economic inequality, often drawing on wide-ranging ideas from game theory and evolutionary biology. We talk about how people evolved to cooperate, and why nevertheless inequality seems to be ubiquitous.
Samuel Bowles received a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University. He has taught at Harvard University, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and the University of Siena, and he is currently Director of the Behavioral Sciences Program at the Santa Fe Institute. He has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Leontief Prize, and is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is one of the developers of the CORE Econ project.
