Since Daron Acemoglu just won the 2024 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences alongside MIT Sloan professor Simon Johnson and University of Chicago professor James Robinson, we’re revisiting  this powerful episode featuring Acemoglu’s insights from 2023. In his groundbreaking book Power and Progress, Acemoglu exposes how the elite have weaponized technology to tighten their grip on wealth and influence, and explains how we can ensure that technological progress works for everyone, not just the wealthy few.

This episode originally aired on August 22, 2023.

Daron Acemoglu is the Institute Professor of Economics at MIT, the university’s highest faculty honor, and a 2024 Nobel laureate. For the last twenty-five years, he has been researching the historical origins of prosperity, poverty, and the effects of new technologies on economic growth, employment, and inequality. He is an author (with James Robinson) of The Narrow Corridor and the New York Times bestseller Why Nations Fail.

Twitter: @NarrowCorridor

Further reading: 

Trio of professors win Nobel economics prize for work on post-colonial wealth

Democracy is in a ‘tough stretch.’ New Nobel winners explain how to strengthen it

Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity

The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies, and the Fate of Liberty

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