Farewell to Freakonomics
On this episode of The Time of Monsters, Marshall Steinbaum on economics as a toxic discipline.
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Farewell to Freakonomics | Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer
On this episode of The Time of Monsters, Marshall Steinbaum on economics as a toxic discipline.
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Steven D. Levitt, best known for cowriting the best-selling 2005 book Freakonomics, is retiring from the University of Chicago with a bang. On the Capitalism and Freedom podcast, Levitt gave a farewell interview where he detailed many internecine feuds in the discipline and examples of toxic abuse, with particular focus on his long-time colleague and nemesis James Heckman.
The economist Marshall Steinbaum, a University of Chicago graduate who now teaches at the University of Utah, returns to The Time of Monsters to elucidate not just the Levitt/Heckman spat but also the question of why economics is a notoriously toxic discipline, how economics has changed over the decade,s rendering both Levitt and Heckman anachronistic, and the recent backlash against anti-racist politics in the discipline.
To supplement the article, listeners can read: Noah Scheiber’s 2007 article on the intellectual origins of Freakonomics, Marshall Steinbaum’s 2020 post about racism in the University of Chicago economic department, and a recent Bloomberg story on racism and sexism in economics.
The Nation Podcasts
Here's where to find podcasts from The Nation. Political talk without the boring parts, featuring the writers, activists and artists who shape the news, from a progressive perspective.
The Real Scandal is Bombing Yemen, Not the Group Chat | Time of Monsters
This week Washington was abuzz with a security scandal over a group chat planning the bombing of Yemen accidentally included magazine editor Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic. Lost amid the finger pointing about operational security was the fact that the bombing of Yemen is illegal, immoral, and ineffective.
To take up the actual scandal of the war, Jeet Heer spoke with Matt Duss, executive vice president of the Center for International Policy. We also discuss the actual contents of the group chat which real important fissures within Trump’s foreign policy team between neo-conservatives who favor fighting as many wars as possible and unilateralists who insist there has to be a prioritizing of conflicts. This fissure opens the path to a much different foreign policy, one that the left can play a role in shaping.
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