Slouching Towards Utopia is the new book from Brad DeLong, Professor of Economics at University of California, Berkeley. Professor DeLong joins show host Gene Tunny to discuss the long twentieth century from 1870 to 2010. The conversation considers the three factors which came together to massively raise living standards post-1870, and how nonetheless we’ve struggled to achieve the Utopia that once appeared possible. The “neoliberal turn” beginning in the 1970s and 1980s is considered, and DeLong explains why he writes that “Hayek and his followers were not only Dr. Jekyll–side geniuses but also Mr. Hyde–side idiots.”

You can buy Slouching Towards Utopia via this link:

https://amzn.to/3TK4evm

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Highlights

• The big story after 1870: technological progress becomes rapid, the technological competence of the human race globally doubles every generation. [6:50]
• The importance of industrial research labs in the big story since 1870 [16:35]
• The role of the modern corporation [18:23]
• Globalization in the late nineteenth century and pre WWI [23:25]
• How bad governance can make a country very poor very quickly [29:09]
• The neoliberal turn [35:56]
• Prof. DeLong thinks the big lesson of history is that trying to maintain social and economic systems past their sell-by date doesn’t work [58:28]

About this episode’s guest: Brad DeLong

Brad DeLong is a professor of economics at U.C. Berkeley, a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, a weblogger at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, and a fellow of the Institute for New Economic Thinking. He received his B.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1982 and 1987. He joined UC Berkeley as an associate professor in 1993 and became a full professor in 1997.

Professor DeLong also served in the U.S. government as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy from 1993 to 1995. He worked on the Clinton Administration's 1993 budget, on the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, on the North American Free Trade Agreement, on macroeconomic policy, and on the unsuccessful health care reform effort.

Before joining the Treasury Department, Professor DeLong was Danziger Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at Harvard University. He has also been a John M. Olin Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research, an Assistant Professor of Economics at Boston University, and a Lecturer in the Department of Economics at M.I.T.

Links relevant to the conversation

Brad DeLong’s substack:

https://braddelong.substack.com/

DeLong on Hobsbawm’s short 20th century (1914 to 1989) compared with his long 20th century:

https://www.bradford-delong.com/2016/12/the-short-vs-the-long-twentieth-century.html

Re. Yegor Gaidar’s analysis of the collapse of the Soviet Union:

https://sites.dartmouth.edu/asamwick/2007/06/08/the-soviet-collapse-grain-and-oil/

Lant Pritchett’s book Let Their People Come: Breaking the Gridlock on Global Labor Mobility:

https://www.cgdev.org/sites/default/files/9781933286105-Pritchett-let-their-people-come.pdf

Credits

Thanks to Brad DeLong for a great conversation, Nicholas Gruen for connecting Gene with Prof. DeLong, and Josh Crotts for mixing the episode and to the show’s sponsor, Gene’s consultancy business www.adepteconomics.com.au. 

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