I'm Stolen From Ernst Gilder

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When you have a powerfully moving forward set of people thinking about ideas, whether the idea is true is likely to be secondary. This is a point I'm stolen from Ernst Gilder, and I think it is very true. And yet somehow the Royal Society decides nothing except an actual experiment - that we are going to demand that nature tell us or tell one of us. It seems not an accident that it's in England,. The same error when you're developing rule of law, constitutional thought, some theory of the rights of man, other stranger movements.

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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