It’s not hard to find critics of capitalism in the current moment but this has always been true: as long as we have had capitalism we have had critics of capitalism. What are the recurring themes of these critiques and how have they helped to shape the economics profession and capitalism itself?

John Cassidy is an author at the New Yorker magazine and also the author of several books. His most recent two are Capitalism and Its Critics: A History: From the Industrial Revolution to AI and How Markets Fail: The Logic of Economic Calamities.

Greg and John discuss the multifaceted and varied criticisms of capitalism throughout history. Over the course of the conversation, Greg recounts how John’s books have investigated economic crises, the behavioral finance revolution, and the diverse critiques of capitalism from both the left and right. John brings up several examples of historical economic figures, from Adam Smith to Marx, and examines how crises have shaped economic thought and policy. Greg and John also make a point to highlight lesser-known critics and movements, underscoring their unsung importance of economic history.

*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*

When both the left and the right turn against capitalism

04:05: In 2016, when Trump was running for the Republican nomination and Bernie Sanders was running for the Democratic nomination, I thought, if you go back into history, it's a long time since we've had sort of major candidates running for office as critics of capitalism from the right and the left. Bernie, of course, has always been a critic of capitalism. He's independent socialist—I'd call him a social democrat, but we can get into what those terms mean if you want. But what's really new was Trump, running from the right with a critique. I mean, people have sort of forgotten now, but when he started out, he was criticizing the banks. He was criticizing big businesses for offshoring. He was running with a critique of capitalism from the right. So that got me thinking about maybe there's a book in how we got here. How can America, sort of world capital of capitalism and always very supportive of the system, come to this state of affairs where the two major candidates are running against it basically?

A historical approach to capitalism

12:21: Capitalism means anything involving large-scale production on the basis of privately owned assets. Private means of production. And if you adopt that broad definition, then mercantile capitalism, slavery, the plantation economies is a form of capitalism.

Why economists often miss the real economy

09:51: I realized in sort of maybe the late nineties, early 2000s, that if you want to speak to an economist about what was going on in the economy and what's happening in Washington, there really wasn't much point in calling up Harvard or MIT or Chicago or whatever, because the economics department would say, "Well, we don't really have anybody who covers that. You need to go to the business school, or you need to go to the business economists." So I think maybe there's been a backlash against that since the Great Financial Crisis. I know there's been a lot of efforts inside various universities, especially in Europe, to make the syllabuses more relevant, more sort of real-world based. But I still think at the higher levels of the subject, it's still extremely abstract.

Recommended Resources:

• Adam Smith
• Dot-com Bubble
• Great Recession
• Neoliberalism
• Keynesian Economics
• Milton Friedman
• Karl Marx
• Rosa Luxemburg
• Industrial Revolution
• Capitalism
• Luddite
• William Thompson
• Robert Owen
• Thomas Carlyle
• Globalization
• Dependency Theory
• Anna Wheeler
• Flora Tristan
• Joan Robinson
• Robert Solow
• Paul Samuelson
• J. C. Kumarappa
• Karl Polanyi

Guest Profile:

• Profile on The New Yorker
• Wikipedia Profile
• Social Profile on X

Guest Work:

• Amazon Author Page
• Capitalism and Its Critics: A History: From the Industrial Revolution to AI
• How Markets Fail: The Logic of Economic Calamities
• Dot.Con: The Greatest Story Ever Sold

How can lawmakers and public servants design policies which benefit from continuous learning?? How will government offices that learn and adopt agile practices be able to achieve better outcomes for the public?

Jennifer Pahlka is a senior fellow at the Niskanen Center, founder of Code For America, and the founder of the US Digital Services under the Obama administration. She is also the author of Recoding America: Why Government Is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better.

Greg and Jennifer discuss why the government struggles with adopting modern digital practices such as agile and waterfall methods. She explains the disconnect between policy-making and implementation, emphasizing the need for a more integrated and feedback-driven approach. They explore other topics such as the over-reliance on contractors, burdensome procurement rules, and the essential role of user research in creating effective digital services. 

*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*

How feedback loops can make government more agile

06:07: Turns out that when you implement this policy in the way that you are telling me, we get a really perverse outcome. If there is no feedback loop to send that information back up to the decision makers, you get a lot of wasted money, you get a lot of perverse outcomes, you get a lot of angry people. But, you know, when the architects can say, or the builders can say, actually no, you can go into a discussion about that, then you have not just an agile development process, but you have a more agile government process.

​​The system, not the people, is broken

30:37: It is not that public servants are lazy or stupid. It is that the system that they are working in is just ill-fit, it is just ill-suited to the job we need it to do.

Why government keeps building concrete boats

30:58: So you are referring to the story I have in the book of this guy at the Veterans Administration (VA), which, by the way, has gotten so much better. He is kind of a leader now. But I am questioning him about this project that we are working on at the USDS, sort of what was pro-USDS before. It was one of the first engagements that were sort of testing out the thesis of the USDS. And I kept asking. This guy was a senior leader in technology in the VA. Like, why is it built this way? Why did you make this decision? And over and over, he says, that is not my call. You have to ask the procurement people, or the program people, or the compliance people. He just did not have answers. And I asked him why he was so deferring on all these. And he said, if they ask us to build a concrete boat, we will build a concrete boat. And I said, why? And he said, well, because that way when it does not work, it is not our fault. And that speaks to the incentives. Your incentive is to make sure that when it does not work, it is someone else’s fault.

Recommended Resources:

• Department of Government Efficiency
• Code for America
• Agile software development
• Waterfall model
• Yadira Sanchez
• Grace Hopper
• Brooks Act
• Paperwork Reduction Act
• Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs
• Charles Worthington
• Ezra Klein

Guest Profile:

• Niskanen Center Profile
• Wikipedia Profile
• JenniferPahlka.com
• LinkedIn Profile
• Social Profile on X
• Social Profile on Instagram

Guest Work:

• Recoding America: Why Government Is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better
• Substack
• Medium

What does it mean to ‘know’ something, and what does it mean specifically when stated by a scientist? What is the role of debate in driving scientific progress, and how does progress get built on the bones of science that we later find to be incorrect?

James C. Zimring is a professor of pathology and immunology at the School of Medicine at the University of Virginia and also an author. His latest books are What Science Is and How It Really Works and Partial Truths: How Fractions Distort Our Thinking.

Greg and James discuss the complex nature of scientific thinking and the philosophical underpinnings of scientific practices. James emphasizes the discrepancies between the idealized version of science and its messy reality. They explore the critical distinction between phenomena and theoretical claims, the social constructs within scientific methodology, and the importance of understanding what it means when scientists claim to 'know' something.

*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*

What science is and isn’t

03:18: My goal here was really to try and provide non-scientists with, as you pointed out, a more realistic assessment of what science is and what it means when a scientist says they know something. Because the hyperbole around scientific claims, although exciting, right, has also destroyed a lot of scientific credibility. The best way to lose credibility is to make a claim that you cannot possibly live up to. And at the same time, science is epistemically distinct. When a scientist says they know something, it means something different than other knowledge claims in other areas of thought. I am not a scientific imperialist. It does not mean something better, but it really means something different. And the failure, I think, to make that distinction is very damaging to how we navigate the world.

Science is not about being right

14:14: Science is not about being right. Science is about getting closer and closer to rightness. But scientists, we try to kill theories. That is what we do.

Science is messy and sloppy

1:00:45: Science is messy and sloppy, and this is what it means when a scientist says they know something, and it is very different from when anyone else says they know something. But it is quite different from what, historically, we say it means.

Why is common sense thinking toxic to scientific progress?

23:48: Common sense thinking is toxic to scientific progress because things that are common sense are often wrong. I mean, they are really helpful if you are wandering around the savanna trying to survive as a nomadic human. But when you are in the laboratory studying science, those things that work so well on the savanna are categorically incorrect. Unlearning millions of years of evolution of cognitive psychology is part of what it is to be a scientist, as you point, learning that we do not observe causality, learning that there are these confounders, learning that common sense things that are obvious may not be, is a large part of the scientific enterprise. And that is where it differs from what you are talking about—normal everyday thinking, especially statistics and other things.

Recommended Resources:

• Thomas Kuhn
• Richard Feynman
• Karl Popper
• A. J. Ayer
• Willard Van Orman Quine
• National Institutes of Health
• Berengar of Tours
• Transubstantiation
• Charles Sanders Peirce
• Confounding
• Paul Feyerabend
• Michel Foucault
• Peter Meijer

Guest Profile:

• Faculty Profile at the University of Virginia School of Medicine
• LinkedIn Profile

Guest Work:

• Amazon Author Page
• What Science Is and How It Really Works
• Partial Truths: How Fractions Distort Our Thinking
• Transfusion Medicine and Hemostasis
• Google Scholar Page
• ResearchGate Page

For much of America’s history, the promise of greater economic opportunities in new places was an intrinsic idea to the country’s identity. But in recent decades, it’s become increasingly difficult to pack up and chase that American dream. Why? 

Yoni Appelbaum is a deputy executive editor at The Atlantic and the author of the book, Stuck: How the Privileged and the Propertied Broke the Engine of American Opportunity which explores the significant decline in geographic and economic mobility in the United States over the past 50 years.

Yoni and Greg analyze the historical context of mobility trends in America, the role of zoning laws, the influence of homeownership policies, and the changes brought about by millions of moves within American society. They also discuss possible reforms and a generational shift towards embracing growth and community development.

*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*

How America got stuck in a mobility decline

16:00: For almost all of American history, when a place was thriving economically, we threw up new housing to accommodate all the new arrivals who would flock toward that opportunity. And then, 50 years ago, we pretty much made it impossible to do that. And so, as a result, when people are in a place today with declining opportunity, they really are kind of stuck—the places that they could move just can't accommodate them.

The hidden costs of not building

30:09: If you do not build housing that is affordable, if you do not build new luxury housing that rich people move into, thereby letting the older housing stock become available to people on, on more limited incomes, if you are not building, then you are shutting out those people. And so, it is not just the crisis of homelessness, which is a real crisis, it is also that lack of mobility.

Why newcomers make communities thrive

06:45: Loneliness is good, aloneness is bad, but loneliness is like hunger. It is a spur to action… [07:09] It is that loneliness of the new arrivals in town that has traditionally spurred people to form social relationships. You are much likelier to join something if you are new in town. And then, there is the other part of it too, which is that a community that is full of new arrivals will have a much more vibrant civic life.

Geography as a tool for reinvention

08:26: Everything that mattered about you was defined at your birth. You inherited your spot in the social hierarchy, your religion, often your father's occupation, your prospects, your identity — all of that — and largely your geographic location, right? You lived on the land your family had lived on for generations and where you expected your grandkids and your great-grandkids to live. You were defined at birth. What America did by allowing people to choose their own communities, by giving a legal right — and this was a bit of a legal revolution — the chance for people to move where they wanted to, we gave people the chance to decide who they wanted to be through their physical geography, through those serial relocations. Because Americans did not just move once, maybe not 40 times, but by moving repeatedly through their lives, Americans were able to continually reinvent themselves and to fashion their own identities. All of these things became matters of choice.

Recommended Resources:

• The Opportunity Atlas
• Okie 
• Jacob Riis

Guest Profile:

• Author Bio at The Atlantic
• Professional Profile on X

Guest Work:

• Stuck: How the Privileged and the Propertied Broke the Engine of American Opportunity

The evolving economic landscape makes institutional reforms in areas like finance, planning, and public infrastructure, a necessity. AI is capable of causing an economic shakeup similar to the transition from horses to steam, with far-reaching ramifications throughout the world’s economies.

Jonathan Haskel is a professor of economics at Imperial College Business School, in London, and also the author of a few books, including Capitalism without Capital: The Rise of the Intangible Economy and Restarting the Future: How to Fix the Intangible Economy.

Greg and Jonathan discuss how traditional institutions, intellectual frameworks, and measurement disciplines are struggling to adapt to an economy increasingly dominated by intangible assets such as software, data, and branding. Jonathan explains the complexities of valuing and measuring intangibles, the role of venture capital, intellectual property laws, and the impact of AI and general-purpose technologies. 

The episode also covers the necessity for institutional reforms in areas like finance, planning, and public infrastructure to better support the evolving economic landscape.

*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*

The two boosts of productivity

31:30: When you have a general-purpose technology, which is also an invention, method of invention, you get two boosts to productivity. The first boost to productivity is in the invention sector itself—what I would call the intangible sector itself, as in the R&D and the software and all that—you get a boost to productivity there. And then the second boost to productivity is when all of those new inventions—now think of steam—start spreading out to the economy as a whole, to be used in the transport sector, in companies, in firms, and all that kind of thing.

The intangible things the new economy makes

03:23: What does the new economy make? It's people writing software. It's people writing movie scripts. It's people trying to think of new ways to market their product or publicize their brand or rearrange their organization. Those are all very intangible things.

What makes the intangible economy unequal?

18:39: We first got into this. We were thinking that spillovers would be the predominant economic force, and therefore a more intangible economy would be, in some broad sense, a more equalized economy…[19:04] But that, of course, goes against people's intuition. We think the economy, in some sense, has become more unequal. And we changed our mind during the writing of the book, actually, and ended up thinking that the forces of synergies are a force, of course, for making it more unequal.

The human edge in a world of intangibles

55:01: Once you start thinking about the task of coordinating the synergies and getting all these people together—guess what—that needs people, people. And scientists might be really good at that, but artists and poets and historians and students of ancient Greek—they might be really good at that as well. So, I am optimistic, actually, that the future could admit people with all sorts of backgrounds and all sorts of skills into this new world.

Recommended Resources:

• Diane Coyle
• Baruch Lev Books
• Intangible Asset
• Software Development
• Paul Romer
• Intellectual Property
• Data
• Thomas Phillipon
• Douglass North
• Abundance by Ezra Klein
• General-purpose technology
• Eric Brynjolfsson
• Robert Gordon

Guest Profile:

• Faculty Profile at Imperial College Business School
• Wikipedia Profile
• Princeton University Press Profile
• Bank of England Profile
• Social Profile on X

Guest Work:

• Amazon Author Page
• Capitalism without Capital: The Rise of the Intangible Economy
• Restarting the Future: How to Fix the Intangible Economy
• Measuring and Accounting for Innovation in the Twenty-First Century
• NBER Page
• Google Scholar Page

What can be gained from looking back now at the pandemic response during COVID? What would a “postmortem” tell us about how policies were designed and how scientific discussions played out? 

Stephen Macedo is a professor of politics at Princeton University, as well as at the University Center for Human Values, and the author of several books including 

Greg and Stephen discuss the decision-making flaws during the COVID-19 pandemic, the lack of robust debate, the role of public health experts, and the increasing influence of partisanship. Stephen explores the potential long-term implications for democracy and science, the concept of noble lies, and the necessity of balancing expert advice with broader public interests. Their conversation also touches on the importance of liberal virtues and the need for both improved decision-making structures and individual adherence to professional ethics.

*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*

When public health crowds out public values

09:52: The public health mindset is that you only pay attention to reducing disease, and so public health experts had too much power. Wider decision-making should have been made by people looking at the whole range of public values, not just disease reduction or attempts to reduce disease. So, the many things that came together—but we regard the book as a window onto the state of our democracy, and in a way, our—you know—the dangers of our epistemic tribalism, to put it that way. The degraded state of deliberation in our country.

How epistemic bubbles are making us dumber

50:57: We are making ourselves stupider by being ensconced in these epistemic bubbles. We are undermining our own capacity for critical thought by not being more open to disagreement.

Science can’t decide for a democracy alone

55:58: We need both more checking of a wide array of elites being involved in thinking, challenging, questioning decisions, but also some way of making sure—possibly through legislative oversight, House of Representatives being involved. The public voices need to be heard as well because they bear the cost of these—need to be heard as well because they bear the cost of these measures. And as we said before, science is not going to make these decisions for us. There are value judgments involved, and it is the people's value judgments that matter to some degree of risk tolerance…[56:35] We need more checking and balancing in these kinds of decisions that affect the public as a whole, and more open debate, discussion, more tolerance of disagreement—including, or maybe even especially, coming from the partisan other, as it were.

Science needs scrutiny, not censorship

14:17: We need empirical inquiry to test the assumptions behind these particular policies and assumptions—not censorship in advance of evidence that might be unwelcome with respect to, you know, certain kinds of policy claims. So, I think there's a wider politicization of science. I do think we need more viewpoint diversity in the academy, and people say, "Wasn't this the code word for having more conservatives?" And I'll say, yes. I think we're a bit too far out of balance. We should not reflect the American public—I mean, that's not the aim—but I think we do not take seriously enough, reasonable concerns coming from the other side of the political spectrum. So, it's a long-winded answer to your question, but I think the COVID experience is emblematic and indicative of a wider problem and deeper problem.

Recommended Resources:

• David Halberstam
• Graham Allison
• Neil Ferguson
• David Zweig
• Francis Collins
• Anthony Fauci
• Sandro Galea
• Stephen Haber
• John Ioannidis
• Scott Atlas
• Deborah Birx
• Alasdair MacIntyre
• Charles Taylor
• The Federalist Papers
• John Locke
• Adam Smith
• Consequentialism
• Ben Bernanke
• The Great Exception: The New Deal and the Limits of American Politics (Politics and Society in Modern America) by Jefferson Cowie
• Insecure Majorities: Congress and the Perpetual Campaign by Frances E. Lee

Guest Profile:

• Faculty Profile at Princeton University
• Wikipedia Page
• Princeton Politics Page
• Social Profile on X
• PhilPeople.org Profile

Guest Work:

• Amazon Author Page
• In Covid's Wake: How Our Politics Failed Us
• Deliberative Politics: Essays on Democracy and Disagreement
• Diversity and Distrust: Civic Education in a Multicultural Democracy
• American Constitutional Interpretation
• The New Right v. the Constitution | CATO Institute

What historical forces have led to the rise of demagogues in the past and how to they compare to the increasing power of populism today? What are the benefits and drawbacks of empowering leaders from outside politics during these times?

Eric A. Posner is a professor of law at the University of Chicago Law School and also the author of several books, including The Demagogue's Playbook: The Battle for American Democracy from the Founders to Trump, Radical Markets: Uprooting Capitalism and Democracy for a Just Society, and The Executive Unbound: After the Madisonian Republic.

Greg and Eric discuss the definition of demagoguery and its historical context in American politics, particularly comparing presidents Donald Trump and Andrew Jackson. They explore the rise of populism, its implications for democracy, and the role of elites and institutions. Additionally, Eric explains his views on labor market power and antitrust law reforms, reflecting on recent American political dynamics and potential future reforms.

*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*

How President Trump changed the presidential playbook

40:43: Trump is really not that popular, but he does—but he is very popular among his base. So I think he has decided, unlike—I think most presidents want to have, like, a large majority, super majority of support. And I think Trump, at some point, realized that he would never get that. And so he wanted to maintain his base plus a few swing voters. And if that is your goal, if that is your plan, it may be fine to do things that upset a lot of people. Whereas when these norms developed—if that is what we are going to call them—they developed in a context in which there was less partisan division, less ideological strife, and it made sense for politicians to be basically more cooperative, even though they represented people with very different interests.

Demagogues appeal to the emotion

08:12: Demagogues appeal to emotion, but it would be wrong to say that any politician who appeals to emotions is a demagogue. There are community and “let us work together” and “let us protect people, vulnerable people,” versus this kind of hatred, which is characteristic of the demagogue, who wants to find somebody to blame for people's problems.

What is the essence of populism?

06:37: The virtuous people, meaning something—well, not never really clear—definitely farmers and maybe working people, versus an establishment consisting of politicians and bankers and capitalists. I think that division is the essence of populism.

The threat of demagoguery

33:08: Usually people are worried about demagoguery because they are worried, basically, that ordinary people will be persuaded by somebody who is evil, basically, or does not have their interest at heart. It is still with us. Never went away.

Recommended Resources:

• Daniel Kahneman
• Populism
• Demagogue
• William Jennings Bryan
• Andrew Jackson
• Federalist Party
• Franklin D. Roosevelt
• Pat Buchanan
• Huey Long
• Second Bank of the United States
• Napoleon
• Douglas MacArthur
• Henry George

Guest Profile:

• Faculty Profile at The University of Chicago Law School
• EricPosner.com
• Faculty Profile at NYU Law School
• Wikipedia Page
• LinkedIn Profile

Guest Work:

• Amazon Author Page
• The Demagogue's Playbook: The Battle for American Democracy from the Founders to Trump
• Radical Markets: Uprooting Capitalism and Democracy for a Just Society
• The Executive Unbound: After the Madisonian Republic
• How Antitrust Failed Workers
• Law and Social Norms
• Climate Change Justice
• The Twilight of Human Rights Law
• Last Resort: The Financial Crisis and the Future of Bailouts
• Terror in the Balance: Security, Liberty, and the Courts
• Economic Foundations of International Law
• The Perils of Global Legalism
• Google Scholar Page

How has the landscape of legal education shifted, and what ramifications has that already started having? How do politics factor into judicial appointments more than ever before, and how did we get to this point?

Ilya L. Shapiro is a senior fellow and the director of Constitutional Studies at the Manhattan Institute. He’s also the author of several books, including Lawless: The Miseducation of America's Elites and Supreme Disorder: Judicial Nominations and the Politics of America's Highest Court Cato Supreme Court Review.

Greg and Ilya explore issues related to Supreme Court nominations, cancel culture, and the impact of bias in legal education. Their conversation also addresses the longstanding politicization of judicial appointments, challenges within legal academia such as DEI and student activism, and the broader implications for law and society. Ilya also shares potential reforms for improving the legal profession and education system.

*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*

When the law becomes just another form of activism

35:49: Another failure of our systems of legal education or of the culture of the legal profession. Young lawyers seeing themselves as the law or their legal tools as just another part of activism, rather than as a profession. Or law schools not teaching lawyers the same way. The way to be a good lawyer is to be able to understand and see all sides of a given argument or issue or dispute. That is how you can best advocate your own sides, your own client's position. Well, if half of that 360 degrees is illegitimate, or you cannot even discuss beyond the pale, outside the Overton window, as they say, then you are going to be a much less effective lawyer. And yes, I think the legal profession has suffered, in general, its credibility, its reputation.

What universities were meant to be

43:19: It is the purpose of universities to develop, to have free inquiry, to have civil debate, to confront new ideas. And if universities have not been doing that for a whole host of reasons, then I think that is a level of criticism—something that they should be held to account for.

On judges and legal objectivity

04:36: You would hope that law and policy are different things, because there is a reason why we separate out the judicial power, and that reason is for it to be a counter-majoritarian check. You do not need judges to buttress popular opinions. You need judges to protect against abuses of power by elected officials. You need judges to protect individual rights against mob rule. And so, it cannot be the case that what is right on the law is always going to be what the majority of policy views. 

When fear shapes the future of the legal profession

30:27: Most students just want to get their degree, get their credential, get a job, have some fun while they are at it, and that is about it. They are not politically motivated or philosophically motivated. They are just there because—especially when we are talking about law schools, rather, or some other professional school as opposed to college—they are there because this is the next step on their career trajectory, and they are just trying to keep their head down so as not to be caught in the cancellation crossfire. And it is fear, and this is how I counsel students, is that you do not have to be a martyr. You do not have to stand up and be an individual, objecting to every injustice you face.

Recommended Resources:

• Ketanji Brown Jackson
• Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.
• Robert Bork
• Theodore Roosevelt
• James Madison
• Alexander Hamilton
• John Jay
• Mancur Olson
• William Treanor
• The Paper Chase
• Lewis F. Powell Jr.
• John Paul Stevens

Guest Profile:

• Faculty Profile at The Manhattan Institute
• Profile at the CATO Institute
• Profile for Burke Law Group
• LinkedIn Profile
• Social Profile on X

Guest Work:

• Substack - Shapiro’s Gavel
• Amazon Author Page
• Lawless: The Miseducation of America's Elites
• Supreme Disorder: Judicial Nominations and the Politics of America's Highest Court
• Cato Supreme Court Review
• Religious Liberties for Corporations?: Hobby Lobby, the Affordable Care Act, and the Constitution
• Amicus Brief -- Alvarez v. Smith

What if there was a system that could decide who to consult for a decision in real time? How would the diversity of the available sources affect the information gathered?

Scott E. Page is a professor of management, social science, and complexity at the University of Michigan. He’s also the author of several books including The Model Thinker: What You Need to Know to Make Data Work for You, Complex Adaptive Systems: An Introduction to Computational Models of Social Life, and The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies.

Greg and Scott discuss the importance of diverse models and perspectives in decision-making. Scott also shares insights on the evolving nature of information access and the role of AI in augmenting diversity in team decision-making processes. The conversation covers themes like cognitive diversity, the role of selection and treatment in maintaining diverse perspectives, and the challenge of fostering a healthy organizational culture where diverse ideas can thrive.

*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*

How do we design institutions for diversity and better decisions with AI

01:01:46: So how do we design, especially now with AI, institutions, organizations, whether they're for-profits, universities, governments, that creates, you know, better people in a way, right? We're so focused on the allocation or the decision that's being made. At the end of the day, the decisions and the allocations are going to be made by those people. So you're getting the outcome, but you're also getting the people. And how do we kind of—and to your point about the treatment—you also want those people to be diverse, right? And you want to allow them and encourage them to be learning new things. In fact, I think you do not want to solve it because you could not solve it, because it would be like social engineering. But I think you want to have some awareness that particular institutional structures and incentives of structures that you're putting in place are not necessarily creating the world you want—or are creating the world you want.

How AI’s power to curate makes culture more important than ever

28:58: We all know AI can know—these are really nice knowledge maps. But the question is: when you start linking people to the knowledge maps and start saying, ‘We can dynamically bring people into the meeting and get their feedback,’ now you’re suddenly curating. I think AI’s ability to curate, to your point, is amazing. But now, let’s pull the culture thing in. How do I not feel like a gadget? How do I not feel like some sort of widget that the AI is using? I think this is where creating the right organizational team culture is going to be really important.

Invisible forces behind organizational design

01:01:30: What comes for free, whether you like it or not, whenever I design an institutional structure and organizational structure, are the norms, the behaviors, the beliefs, the networks—all that other stuff. The kind of dark matter that really matters for society.

Why simple models fail on complex problems

07:59: If you take something like inequality, it is a complex problem, right? Or the environment. It is a complex problem. Models are simple. So there is no way you can explain something complex with something simple. You are kind of explaining a 16 with a three or something. You just cannot. If the problem is this big and your model is this big, you cannot get it all. But if you have a bunch of models in conversation with one another, then I think you can, potentially, reach a deep understanding. You could predict better, right? I think it is a better way to advance science.

How AI can bridge decision gaps across social inequality

58:12: People who come from families who are well socially connected, who have wealth, who are educated—they get good advice on big decisions that maybe other people do not get. And you can go to the internet to get advice, but you are going to get it pointing in a thousand directions. The question is: will there be ways to have—like, will banks, will others—will they develop AI that they say, “Look, okay, we are going to approve this, but why do you not, you know, use this software and go through this process? It may help you think about particular things.”

Recommended Resources:

• Keynesian Economics
• James G. March
• Markov Model
• Porter's Five Forces
• Charlie Munger
• Bayesian Statistics
• Philip E. Tetlock
• Daniel Kahneman
• John Seely Brown

Guest Profile:

• Faculty Profile at the University of Michigan
• Wikipedia Profile
• LinkedIn Profile
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Liberalism is a term that has been adopted and adapted in different ways over the centuries of its use. How do we need to rethink and communicate the core principles of liberalism in the face of modern challenges?

Helena Rosenblatt is a professor in the History, French, and Political Science departments at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). She is also the author of several books, including The Lost History of Liberalism: From Ancient Rome to the Twenty-First Century and Liberal Values: Benjamin Constant and the Politics of Religion.

Greg and Helena discuss the shifting meanings and history of liberalism, focusing on key themes such as the Anglo-American appropriation of liberalism, the evolution of liberal values, and the struggle between individual rights and civic virtues. Helena also touches upon the impact of religious influence, the educational system, the rise of new liberalism, and the relevance of civic education in contemporary society. 

*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*

Liberalism began with character, not politics

09:10: With the advent of Christianity, we started to talk about God's liberality towards, so there was no liberalism. The noun was liberality, as you mentioned. And then it became Christianized, and it meant then charitable. And then eventually, in the 18th century, with the Enlightenment, it started to mean tolerant and sociable. A gentleman was liberal in that he was open-minded. He was polite. He was educated, and we should not forget liberal arts education. Right? So very important to liberality. And it is good to think about today when the liberal arts, we think anyway in the humanities, are under siege, if you will, you know, and people lamenting the decline of civic engagement and of qualities of a citizen—that is what the liberal arts education was supposed to teach.

Why liberalism was never meant to be direct democracy

26:00 We are for the people, and we are accountable to the people. But it is for the people. It is not by the people. Government—we are supposed to be generous. We are supposed to be thinking about them. We are supposed to rule for them, but we cannot possibly allow them to rule.

What happens when liberal face strongmen

22:00: The notion that a strongman politics, which we are seeing again today, was something that liberals became very especially concerned with because they saw what could happen when people place their faith in a strongman who appealed directly to—you know, populism is not a recent thing. They did not call it populism then? I do not think so. But this idea that I am the people, I understand the people, your so-called representatives are just, you know, in deadlock. They cannot make—they are just talking. They are just a bunch of lawyers who, you know—this is an old, very old accusation that strongmen used in order to get, very often, elected democratically, but then unravel and destroy all the safeguards that were there or were meant to be there to safeguard individual rights, for example.

Recommended Resources:

• Liberalism
• John Locke
• Thomas Hobbes
• Germaine de Staël
• Benjamin Constant
• French Revolution
• Freemasonry
• Otto von Bismarck
• Adam Smith
• Walter Lippmann
• Liberal Party
• Napoleon
• Richard T. Ely
• Friedrich Hayek
• Alexis de Tocqueville

Guest Profile:

• Faculty Profile at CUNY
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Guest Work:

• Amazon Author Page
• The Lost History of Liberalism: From Ancient Rome to the Twenty-First Century
• Liberal Values: Benjamin Constant and the Politics of Religion
• The Cambridge Companion to Constant
• Rousseau and Geneva: From the First Discourse to The Social Contract, 1749–1762