EconTalk Archives - The Podcast Browser

Ben Southwood – The Secret Cause of the Industrial Revolution

Interview with Ben Southwood about his Works in Progress essay The Secret Cause of the Industrial Revolution. Explores how England’s Industrial Revolution was propelled by the Glorious Revolution’s institutional reforms, particularly in property rights. Parliament, dominated by landowners, systematically dismantled complex land tenure systems (like entails and open fields) and facilitated private investment in agriculture and infrastructure (roads, canals, navigable rivers). These reforms, often enacted through specific ‘Private Acts’, enabled more efficient land use, capital accumulation, and market expansion, creating the necessary conditions for widespread technological innovation and sustained economic growth, a process largely consented to by the populace.

Hussein Aboubakr Mansour – A Metacritique of Palestine

On the Political Economy of a Word-Symbol

Interview with Hussein Aboubakr Mansour about his essay A Metacritique of Palestine: On the Political Economy of a Word-Symbol. Rather than a good guys versus bad guys morality play, frames the Israeli/Palestine conflict as a self-reproducing system of political and economic extraction where Arab regimes, opposition movements, rival states, Western academics, NGOs, and Gulf monarchies like Qatar all convert Palestinian victimhood into their own forms of power, money, and meaning. Discusses his childhood in an Egypt organized around the liberation of Palestine and explores why any exit from the system must run not through policy, but rather through the human need for meaning itself.

John Mandrola – Bravery (and Humility) is Needed to do Proper Medical Science

Interview with John Mandrola about his Substack essay Bravery (and Humility) is Needed to do Proper Medical Science. Discusses a clinical trial in which patients who received sham knee surgery (a real incision, but no actual repair) did as well or better than those who had the actual procedure – one performed 700,000 times annually in the U.S. Covers the power of placebo and nocebo effects (how expectation of harm can cause real suffering) to the broader philosophy of “medical conservatism” – the idea that humility, watchful waiting, and honest counsel often serve patients better than the knife. Argues that financial incentives, professional identity, and language itself (“bone-on-bone,” “the widowmaker”) conspire to push patients toward interventions that can do more harm than good.

Philip Auerswald – A Phone Is a Cow

How Pioneers of the Mobile Revolution Helped Millions Lift Themselves Out of Poverty

Interview with Philip Auerswald about his book A Phone Is a Cow: How Pioneers of the Mobile Revolution Helped Millions Lift Themselves Out of Poverty. Discusses how the extension of mobile connectivity to traditionally excluded populations led to wide-scale transformations in productivity. Explains the role of little-known entrepreneurs such as Iqbal Quadir and innovators like Claude Shannon in bringing the mobile phone to the entire world. Also covers William Nordhaus’s paper on the cost of illumination as a powerful metric of human progress, Schumpeter’s notion of innovation as new combinations, and how much of human progress is inevitable, and how much depends on the determination of remarkable individuals?

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Rowan Jacobsen – In Defense of Sunlight

The Surprising Science of Sun Exposure

Econtalk | 15 June 2026 | 1h 05m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Rowan Jacobsen about his book In Defense of Sunlight: The Surprising Science of Sun Exposure. Backgrounds the health benefits of sunshine and makes the case for prudent sun exposure. Discusses the “heliotherapy” movement that peaked in the early 1900s in response to rickets and tuberculosis, why diagnosing skin cancer is on the rise, and why yesterday’s sunscreens may have done more harm than good.

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Dennis Rasmussen – The Infidel and the Professor

David Hume, Adam Smith, and the Friendship That Shaped Modern Thought

EconTalk | 6 November 2017 | 1h 11m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Dennis Rasmussen about his book The Infidel and the Professor: David Hume, Adam Smith, and the Friendship That Shaped Modern Thought. Discusses the friendship between David Hume and Adam Smith during the Scottish Enlightenment. Explores how Smith’s moral theory refined Hume’s concepts of sympathy, emphasising imaginative projection over mere emotional contagion. Compares their recognition of commerce as a driver of liberty, with Smith more cautiously noting its potential for moral corruption and psychological anxiety. Contrasts Hume’s overt religious scepticism with Smith’s reticent sceptical deism, examining the massive public backlash Smith faced for declaring the infidel Hume a paragon of virtue.

David Epstein – Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better

EconTalk | 11 May 2026 | 1h 10m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with David Epstein about his book Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better. Explores the counterintuitive idea that boundaries, and not unlimited freedom, often make us more creative, productive, and fulfilled.

Ross Levine – From the Hand of Adam Smith

EconTalk | 20 April 2026 | 1h 03m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Ross Levine about his project From the Hand of Adam Smith: A New Series. Reimagines Adam Smith’s 18th-century wisdom for the modern era. Drawing from The Theory of Moral Sentiments, explores the tension between the desire to be admired (loved) and the goal of being worthy of admiration (lovely). Analyses the “poor man’s son” parable, warning that prioritising wealth over virtue corrupts moral sentiments and threatens social order. Argues that Smith’s impartial spectator remains a vital guide for achieving internal integrity and true tranquillity.