Show Notes
Should you trust experts—or trust yourself? Richard Hanania, author of Kakistocracy: Why Populism Ends in Disaster joins to discuss why populism has become one of the defining forces in modern politics. We discuss whether elites really deserve their bad reputation, why expertise and institutions matter, where academia and the media have genuinely failed, and whether movements built around "the wisdom of ordinary people" inevitably drift toward conspiracy theories, corruption, and bad governance.
More from The Political Orphanage
Corporate personhood is one of the most misunderstood concepts in American law. From ancient Rome and medieval universities to William Blackstone and the modern Supreme Court, this episode explores why corporations have legal identities, how limited liability works, why companies can be prosecuted for crimes, and whether they can receive the corporate equivalent of the death penalty. Then, a look at three competing philosophies of corporate personhood—Association Theory, Concession Theory, and Real-Entity Theory. Are corporations simply groups of individuals exercising their freedoms collectively? Artificial creations granted privileges by government? Or institutions with identities and rights of their own? And which constitutional rights should corporations actually possess? SUPPORT THE SHOW! www.JoinTheOrph.com
Why is Germany's anti-immigration AfD surging in popularity? And why does immigration seem to work better in America than in Europe? Harris, a Bosnian refugee turned American citizen who now lives and works in Germany, joins us to explore the economic, cultural, and political tensions fueling Europe's immigration backlash.
Americans pay vastly more for medicine than citizens of other wealthy countries, but are those countries getting a bargain at our expense? David Goldhill, author of Catastrophic Care and founder and CEO of the healthcare marketplace Sesame, joins the show to explain why he considers American healthcare a kind of "second NATO"—one in which the United States shoulders a disproportionate share of the costs of medical innovation while the rest of the world reaps the benefits. We discuss why American healthcare is so outrageously expensive, whether adopting a European-style system would undermine medical innovation, why hospitals compete on everything except price, and whether healthcare can ever function like a normal market.
When does a successful company become a dangerous monopoly? Heaton traces the strange history of American antitrust law, from railroad barons and Standard Oil to Hollywood studios and Big Tech, before diving into the intellectual cage match between Louis Brandeis and Robert Bork. Should regulators worry about corporations getting too big and powerful, or only step in when consumers actually get hurt? Along the way, Heaton encounters natural monopolies, vertical integration, glitter cartels, cowboy boots, suspiciously powerful coffin companies, and the surprisingly difficult question of what even counts as a market.
Alex Mayyasi of NPR's Planet Money joins me to explore some of the stranger forces shaping the economy. Why did the federal government create a legally mandated raisin cartel? Why are so many American corporations technically from Delaware? Should companies exist solely to make money? And are there times when price controls actually work? We also dig into Baumol's cost disease—the counterintuitive reason that as society gets richer, childcare, healthcare, restaurants, haircuts, teachers, and live performances can become increasingly expensive. Plus: how rising labor costs might be contributing to the loneliness epidemic, and how Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz helped invent the modern television business. His book: "Planet Money: A Guide to the Economic Forces That Shape Your Life"