POPULARITY
Sean Illing talks with economic historian Brad DeLong about his new book Slouching Towards Utopia. In it, DeLong claims that the "long twentieth century" was the most consequential period in human history, during which the institutions of rapid technological growth and globalization were created, setting humanity on a path towards improving life, defeating scarcity, and enabling real freedom. But... this ran into some problems. Sean and Brad talk about the power of markets, how the New Deal led to something approaching real social democracy, and why the Great Recession of 2008 and its aftermath signified the end of this momentous era. Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area Guest: J. Bradford DeLong (@delong), author; professor of economics, U.C. Berkeley References: Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century by J. Bradford DeLong (Basic; 2022) The Road to Serfdom by Friedrich von Hayek (1944) The Great Transformation by Karl Polanyi (1944) Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy by Joseph Schumpeter (1942) "A Short History of Enclosure in Britain" by Simon Fairlie (This Land Magazine; 2009) "China's Great Leap Forward" by Clayton D. Brown (Association for Asian Studies; 2012) What Is Property? by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1840) The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order by Gary Gerstle (Oxford University Press; 2022) Apple's "1984" ad (YouTube) The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money by John Maynard Keynes (1936) "The spectacular ongoing implosion of crypto's biggest star, explained" by Emily Stewart (Vox; Nov. 18) "Did Greenspan Add to Subprime Woes? Gramlich Says Ex-Colleague Blocked Crackdown" by Greg Ip (Wall Street Journal; June 9, 2007) "Families across the country are tightening their belts and making tough decisions. The federal government should do the same," from President Obama's 2010 State of the Union Address (Jan. 27, 2010) "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte" by Karl Marx (1852) Why We're Polarized by Ezra Klein (Simon & Schuster; 2020) The Paradox of Democracy: Free Speech, Open Media, and Perilous Persuasion by Zac Gershberg and Sean Illing (U. Chicago; 2022) Enjoyed this episode? Rate The Gray Area ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Subscribe for free. Be the first to hear the next episode of The Gray Area. Subscribe in your favorite podcast app. Support Vox Conversations by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts This episode was made by: Producer: Erikk Geannikis Editor: Amy Drozdowska Engineer: Patrick Boyd Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
El 23 de marzo de 2023, la Fundación Rafael del Pino organizó la conferencia online de J. Bradford Delong, catedrático de economía en la Universidad de California en Berkeley, titulada “Camino a la utopía. Una historia económica del siglo XX”, con motivo de la publicación de su libro del mismo nombre.
El 23 de marzo de 2023, la Fundación Rafael del Pino organizó la conferencia online de J. Bradford Delong, catedrático de economía en la Universidad de California en Berkeley, titulada “Camino a la utopía. Una historia económica del siglo XX”, con motivo de la publicación de su libro del mismo nombre.
It has been a momentous week for banks and markets. What some have dubbed an “extinction-level event” was, at its core, the failure of a couple of banks. To help us put all of this into proper perspective, we are joined on this week's WhoWhatWhy podcast by two distinguished economists, J. Bradford DeLong and Dean Baker. DeLong served as deputy undersecretary of the treasury in the Clinton administration and is currently a professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley. He is also the author of the substack Grasping Reality and the recently published book Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century. Baker co-founded the Center for Economic and Policy Research. His areas of research include housing and macroeconomics, intellectual property, Social Security, Medicare, and European labor markets. He has been credited as one of the first economists to have identified the 2007–08 United States housing bubble, and, in 2006, Baker predicted that “plunging housing investment will likely push the economy into recession.” Together, they discuss the venture-capitalist libertarian overreaction to the event, as well as the way it has been massively misrepresented by all of the press, including the mainstream press. They detail the differences between this event and the 2008–09 banking crisis, the power of contagion and rumor in the digital and social media age, and what actually transpired during the 36 hours the bank was shut down by the FDIC. We discuss what this means for both small and regional banks, and for the “too big to fail” banks, which are now suddenly in favor. While the whole story could be forgotten in a matter of weeks, the implications and downstream effects will be with us for quite some time. My WhoWhatWhy conversation with Dean Baker and Brad DeLong:
Between 1870 and 2010 an unprecedented explosion of material wealth transformed the globe, but that wave of prosperity failed to create a fully functioning and equal society. How did we manage to create an economic pie large enough for everyone to share, but then fumble dividing that pie up equally? Brad DeLong explores this question in his new book, Slouching Towards Utopia, which looks at the economic history of the twentieth century and why it matters today. J. Bradford DeLong is an economic historian and a professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley. He was a deputy assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury during the Clinton administration. He writes a widely read economics blog, now at braddelong.substack.com Twitter: @delong Slouching Towards Utopia https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/j-bradford-delong/slouching-towards-utopia/9780465019595 Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick's twitter: @NickHanauer
Some analysts argue that capitalism would work better without democracy, while others believe that democracy would be better off without capitalism – so what's the solution? In his new book “The crisis of democratic capitalism”, Martin Wolf, chief economics commentator at the Financial Times, sets out how they actually need one another if either is to thrive. In this week's episode, host Mark Leonard welcomes Wolf to discuss what democratic capitalism is all about and how it is threatened by two distinct authoritarian versions of capitalism. What does all this mean for the development of democracy and capitalism in developing and emerging economies? And what are the chances that democratic capitalism will remain the model to which countries around the world aspire? This podcast was recorded on 10 February 2023. Bookshelf - The crisis of democratic capitalism by Martin Wolf - Slouching towards utopia by J. Bradford DeLong
The 20th century was defined in large part by the conflicts between free market-oriented ideas, and policies favoring government intervention to soften the effects of unbridled markets. It was also defined by broad increases in quality of life. Yet, even as material progress of the last 150 years greatly exceeded that of the previous thousands of years, it hasn't led to the utopia that people in earlier, more materially dire periods, believed would come about. Drawing on his new book 'Slouching Towards Utopia,' J. Bradford DeLong joins EconoFact Chats to discuss why. Brad is a Professor of Economics at the University of California at Berkeley. He served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy from 1993 to 1995. 'Slouching Towards Utopia,' was named one of the best business books of 2022 by The Financial Times.
The 20th century was defined in large part by the conflicts between free market-oriented ideas, and policies favoring government intervention to soften the effects of unbridled markets. It was also defined by broad increases in quality of life. Yet, even as material progress of the last 150 years greatly exceeded that of the previous thousands of years, it hasn't led to the utopia that people in earlier, more materially dire periods, believed would come about. Drawing on his new book 'Slouching Towards Utopia,' J. Bradford DeLong joins EconoFact Chats to discuss why. Brad is a Professor of Economics at the University of California at Berkeley. He served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy from 1993 to 1995. 'Slouching Towards Utopia,' was named one of the best business books of 2022 by The Financial Times.
Economist Brad DeLong was feeling optimistic in February 2021, because inflation was well below target. Weeks later, Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the invasion of Ukraine, sending price shocks through the global economy. The latest numbers indicate inflation is slowing, but people around the world are still feeling the sting. While the US has it better than most, no one is immune from the global economic slump. So what does inflation mean for our pocketbooks, and for our mental health? Ray Suarez speaks with DeLong about why a little bit of inflation may be good for the economy, but also signals to service-sector and middle class workers that the system isn't working for them. Guest: Bradford DeLong, UC Berkeley economist and author of Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century Host: Ray Suarez If you appreciate this episode and want to support the work we do, please consider making a donation to World Affairs. We cannot do this work without your help. Thank you.
Hosted by Andrew Keen, Keen On features conversations with some of the world's leading thinkers and writers about the economic, political, and technological issues being discussed in the news, right now. In this episode, Andrew is joined by J. Bradford DeLong, author of Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century. J. Bradford DeLong, an economic historian, is a professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley. He was a deputy assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury during the Clinton administration. He writes a widely read economics blog, now at braddelong.substack.com. He lives in Berkeley, California. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Sean Illing talks with economic historian Brad DeLong about his new book Slouching Towards Utopia. In it, DeLong claims that the "long twentieth century" was the most consequential period in human history, during which the institutions of rapid technological growth and globalization were created, setting humanity on a path towards improving life, defeating scarcity, and enabling real freedom. But... this ran into some problems. Sean and Brad talk about the power of markets, how the New Deal led to something approaching real social democracy, and why the Great Recession of 2008 and its aftermath signified the end of this momentous era. Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area Guest: J. Bradford DeLong (@delong), author; professor of economics, U.C. Berkeley References: Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century by J. Bradford DeLong (Basic; 2022) The Road to Serfdom by Friedrich von Hayek (1944) The Great Transformation by Karl Polanyi (1944) Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy by Joseph Schumpeter (1942) "A Short History of Enclosure in Britain" by Simon Fairlie (This Land Magazine; 2009) "China's Great Leap Forward" by Clayton D. Brown (Association for Asian Studies; 2012) What Is Property? by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1840) The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order by Gary Gerstle (Oxford University Press; 2022) Apple's "1984" ad (YouTube) The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money by John Maynard Keynes (1936) "The spectacular ongoing implosion of crypto's biggest star, explained" by Emily Stewart (Vox; Nov. 18) "Did Greenspan Add to Subprime Woes? Gramlich Says Ex-Colleague Blocked Crackdown" by Greg Ip (Wall Street Journal; June 9, 2007) "Families across the country are tightening their belts and making tough decisions. The federal government should do the same," from President Obama's 2010 State of the Union Address (Jan. 27, 2010) "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte" by Karl Marx (1852) Why We're Polarized by Ezra Klein (Simon & Schuster; 2020) The Paradox of Democracy: Free Speech, Open Media, and Perilous Persuasion by Zac Gershberg and Sean Illing (U. Chicago; 2022) Enjoyed this episode? Rate The Gray Area ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Subscribe for free. Be the first to hear the next episode of The Gray Area. Subscribe in your favorite podcast app. Support Vox Conversations by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts This episode was made by: Producer: Erikk Geannikis Editor: Amy Drozdowska Engineer: Patrick Boyd Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
El economista Bradford DeLong comparte con Moisés Naím su visión sobre los principales desafíos económicos de hoy: desde la inflación hasta la desigualdad. Y también dice a quién considera el hombre más tonto del mundo.
“One can usually pretend that there is a logic to the distribution of wealth — that behind a person's prosperity lies some rational basis, whether it is that person's hard work, skill and farsightedness or some ancestor's,” writes J. Bradford DeLong. “Inflation — even moderate inflation — strips the mask.”DeLong is an economic historian at the University of California, Berkeley, a former deputy assistant secretary of the Treasury and the author of “Slouching Towards Utopia” — a new book about the wave of economic growth that transformed the world in the 20th century. In it, he argues, among other things, that inflation isn't just economically damaging; it's one of the most destabilizing, destructive forces in all of politics. Left unchecked, it has the power to swing elections, erode the foundations of core social institutions and usher in wholesale changes in political and economic regimes.That's exactly what happened the last time inflation was this high. In DeLong's telling, the inflation crisis of the 1970s was weaponized to discredit the reigning New Deal economic order and helped give rise to the small government, pro-market political turn of the 1980s — the consequences of which we are living with today. So I wanted to have DeLong on the show to walk me through that story and some of the questions it raises: Why is inflation is so uniquely politically destructive? What are the right — and wrong — lessons to take from the experience of the 1970s? What kinds of political transformations could today's inflation could bring about?We also discuss why inflation spiraled out of control in the 1970s (and whether it could have been stopped sooner), the efficacy of price controls as a way of taming inflation, why DeLong believes it's a mistake to take the 1970s comparisons too literally, how unchecked inflation can decimate social trust, how economic thinking became obsessed with “moochers” and “slackers” in the 1980s and '90s, whether the 2007-08 financial crisis brought an end to the neoliberal era, what DeLong would say to his younger self serving in the early Clinton administration and more.Book Recommendations:The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order by Gary GestleFree Market by Jacob SollAdam Smith's America by Glory M. LiuThoughts? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com. (And if you're reaching out to recommend a guest, please write “Guest Suggestion" in the subject line.)You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.“The Ezra Klein Show” is produced by Emefa Agawu, Annie Galvin, Jeff Geld and Rogé Karma. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, Rollin Hu, Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sinclair. Original music by Isaac Jones. Mixing by Jeff Geld and Sonia Hererro. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. Special thanks to Kristin Lin and Kristina Samulewski.
Ahead of next month's crucial US midterm elections, Democrats would usually be counting on the support of labor unions, historically a key constituency for the party. And unions are having a moment in this late pandemic era, with successful organizing drives among Starbucks baristas and Amazon warehouse workers. But despite President Joe Biden's efforts to woo them, many union members are showing a lack of enthusiasm for Democrats that may undercut the party's bid to keep control of both houses of Congress. In this week's episode of the Stephanomics podcast, reporter Katia Dmitrieva provides a dispatch from the traditional union stronghold of Macomb County, Michigan. Biden, who promised to be the most pro-union president ever, has followed through to an extent by regularly touting their importance while creating a labor task force, enacting its proposals and helping secure a deal that may yet avert a damaging railroad strike. Still, some workers in this Detroit-area county say they hoped for more. Democratic efforts to raise the federal minimum wage struck out in a sharply divided Congress, and the PRO Act, legislation to strengthen collective bargaining, has stalled. In the words of one Starbucks barista, who helped unionize her store, the Biden administration's efforts have been "a little bit performative." Then Stephanie speaks to University of California, Berkeley economist Bradford DeLong about his new book, Slouching Towards Utopia. DeLong argues that the 20th century essentially started in 1870, a technological turning point after which production was rapid enough that (at least theoretically) we could bake a large enough economic pie to provide for all. The fact that, in the real world, everyone doesn't have enough is a symptom of our failure to distribute goods and services equitably, DeLong observes. Getting in the way of that goal as well are human foibles including a desire to distribute wealth to their children and a related disdain for inheritance taxes, as well as abhorrence of people who appear to be getting a free ride, he says.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Dr. J. Bradford 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. Prior to this, he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Treasury in the Clinton Administration. Holding a Ph.D. from Harvard University, his latest book is titled, Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century.
J. Bradford DeLong is here to deliver on the title of his impressive tome Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History Of The Twentieth Century. It Starts with 1870 and ends the year Law & Order was cancelled (it came back … the economy didn't). Plus, the case for the nation's defense budget being largely, mostly, mainly worth it. And the non-offensive parts of the LA City Council tapes are pretty instructive as to how politics everywhere really works. Produced by Joel Patterson and Corey Wara Email us at thegist@mikepesca.com To advertise on the show, visit: https://advertisecast.com/TheGist Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
"This is one of the best economic history books I've ever read."J. Bradford "Brad" DeLong, Berkeley economics professor, former Clinton-era Treasury official, and pioneering economics blogger* joins today's conversation on the heels of his latest book release, Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century. Part history lesson, part economic theory discussion, Brad and James debate what DeLong has dubbed the "long twentieth century" from 1870 to 2010 where the "last three institutional blocks" fell into place: the industrial research lab, the modern corporation, and the modern globalized market.Additional Topics Include:How Westinghouse was able to utilize Nikola Tesla's genius (07:30)Reagan's experiment with "Trickle Down" theory (22:27)Do "the 99%" have more equal income distribution than in previous eras? (28:16)Public Colleges' funding model switch from taxpayers to attendees in the 1970s (35:28)Secular Stagnation in the Post-2010 Economy (50:40)"The people with the want don't have the money, and the people with the money don't have the want" (58:39)What the Federal Reserve should do over the next 18 months (01:05:03)Editor's note: Topic times don't account for sponsor ads and may appear a few minutes later in the episode on your podcast player)------------Visit Notepd.com to read our idea lists & sign up to create your own!My new book Skip the Line is out! Make sure you get a copy wherever books are sold!Join the You Should Run for President 2.0 Facebook Group, where we discuss why you should run for President.I write about all my podcasts! Check out the full post and learn what I learned at jamesaltucher.com/podcast.------------Thank you so much for listening! If you like this episode, please rate, review, and subscribe to “The James Altucher Show” wherever you get your podcasts: Apple PodcastsStitcheriHeart RadioSpotifyFollow me on Social Media:YouTubeTwitterFacebook
This week's guest is J. Bradford DeLong, author of the new economic history of the 20th century, https://bookshop.org/a/82618/9780465019595 (Slouching Towards Utopia). Brad and I discuss William Morris, pre-industrial civilization, jobs versus occupations, and how much blame anarchists deserve for ruining the world. Brad and I had a bit of trouble with our setup, so the audio on his end is a bit rough.
From one of the world's leading economists, a sweeping new history of the twentieth century—a century that left us vastly richer, yet still profoundly dissatisfied. Before 1870, most people lived in dire poverty, the benefits of the slow crawl of invention continually offset by a growing population. Then came a great shift: invention sprinted forward, doubling our technological capabilities each generation, and creatively destroying the economy again and again. Slouching Towards Utopia tells the story of the major economic and technological shifts of the 20th century in a bold and ambitious, grand narrative. In vivid and compelling detail, DeLong charts the unprecedented explosion of material wealth after 1870 which transformed living standards around the world, freeing humanity from centuries of poverty, but paradoxically has left us now with unprecedented inequality, global warming and widespread dissatisfaction with the status quo. How did the long twentieth century fail to deliver the utopia our ancestors believed would be the inevitable result of such material wellbeing? How did humanity end up less on a march to progress than a slouch in the right direction? And what can we learn from the past in pursuit of a better world?
From one of the world's leading economists, a grand narrative of the century that made us richer than ever, yet left us unsatisfied Before 1870, humanity lived in dire poverty, with a slow crawl of invention offset by a growing population. Then came a great shift: invention sprinted forward, doubling our technological capabilities each generation and utterly transforming the economy again and again. Our ancestors would have presumed we would have used such powers to build utopia. But it was not so. When 1870-2010 ended, the world instead saw global warming; economic depression, uncertainty, and inequality; and broad rejection of the status quo. Brad DeLong's Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century (Basic Books, 2022) tells the story of how this unprecedented explosion of material wealth occurred, how it transformed the globe--and why it failed to deliver us to utopia. Of remarkable breadth and ambition, it uncovers the last century to have been less a march of progress than a slouch in the right direction. Javier Mejia is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Political Science Department at Stanford University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/german-studies
Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas
People throughout history have imagined ideal societies of various sorts. As the twentieth century dawned, advances in manufacturing and communication arguably brought the idea of utopia within our practical reach, at least as far as economic necessities are concerned. But we failed to achieve it, to say the least. Brad DeLong's new book, Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century, investigates why. He compares the competing political and economic systems that dominated the “long 20th century” from 1870 to 2010, and how we managed to create such enormous wealth and still be left with such intractable problems.Support Mindscape on Patreon.J. Bradford DeLong received his Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University. He is currently a professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley. and chief economist at the Blum Center for Developing Economies. He previously served as deputy assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury for Economic Policy from 1993 to 1995. He has been a long-running blogger, now moved to Substack. He is a co-editor of The Economists' Voice.Web siteBerkeley web pageSubstack/blogGoogle Scholar publicationsPodcast (with Noah Smith)WikipediaTwitterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
From one of the world's leading economists, a grand narrative of the century that made us richer than ever, yet left us unsatisfied Before 1870, humanity lived in dire poverty, with a slow crawl of invention offset by a growing population. Then came a great shift: invention sprinted forward, doubling our technological capabilities each generation and utterly transforming the economy again and again. Our ancestors would have presumed we would have used such powers to build utopia. But it was not so. When 1870-2010 ended, the world instead saw global warming; economic depression, uncertainty, and inequality; and broad rejection of the status quo. Brad DeLong's Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century (Basic Books, 2022) tells the story of how this unprecedented explosion of material wealth occurred, how it transformed the globe--and why it failed to deliver us to utopia. Of remarkable breadth and ambition, it uncovers the last century to have been less a march of progress than a slouch in the right direction. Javier Mejia is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Political Science Department at Stanford University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history
From one of the world's leading economists, a grand narrative of the century that made us richer than ever, yet left us unsatisfied Before 1870, humanity lived in dire poverty, with a slow crawl of invention offset by a growing population. Then came a great shift: invention sprinted forward, doubling our technological capabilities each generation and utterly transforming the economy again and again. Our ancestors would have presumed we would have used such powers to build utopia. But it was not so. When 1870-2010 ended, the world instead saw global warming; economic depression, uncertainty, and inequality; and broad rejection of the status quo. Brad DeLong's Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century (Basic Books, 2022) tells the story of how this unprecedented explosion of material wealth occurred, how it transformed the globe--and why it failed to deliver us to utopia. Of remarkable breadth and ambition, it uncovers the last century to have been less a march of progress than a slouch in the right direction. Javier Mejia is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Political Science Department at Stanford University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/finance
From one of the world's leading economists, a grand narrative of the century that made us richer than ever, yet left us unsatisfied Before 1870, humanity lived in dire poverty, with a slow crawl of invention offset by a growing population. Then came a great shift: invention sprinted forward, doubling our technological capabilities each generation and utterly transforming the economy again and again. Our ancestors would have presumed we would have used such powers to build utopia. But it was not so. When 1870-2010 ended, the world instead saw global warming; economic depression, uncertainty, and inequality; and broad rejection of the status quo. Brad DeLong's Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century (Basic Books, 2022) tells the story of how this unprecedented explosion of material wealth occurred, how it transformed the globe--and why it failed to deliver us to utopia. Of remarkable breadth and ambition, it uncovers the last century to have been less a march of progress than a slouch in the right direction. Javier Mejia is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Political Science Department at Stanford University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
From one of the world's leading economists, a grand narrative of the century that made us richer than ever, yet left us unsatisfied Before 1870, humanity lived in dire poverty, with a slow crawl of invention offset by a growing population. Then came a great shift: invention sprinted forward, doubling our technological capabilities each generation and utterly transforming the economy again and again. Our ancestors would have presumed we would have used such powers to build utopia. But it was not so. When 1870-2010 ended, the world instead saw global warming; economic depression, uncertainty, and inequality; and broad rejection of the status quo. Brad DeLong's Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century (Basic Books, 2022) tells the story of how this unprecedented explosion of material wealth occurred, how it transformed the globe--and why it failed to deliver us to utopia. Of remarkable breadth and ambition, it uncovers the last century to have been less a march of progress than a slouch in the right direction. Javier Mejia is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Political Science Department at Stanford University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
From one of the world's leading economists, a grand narrative of the century that made us richer than ever, yet left us unsatisfied Before 1870, humanity lived in dire poverty, with a slow crawl of invention offset by a growing population. Then came a great shift: invention sprinted forward, doubling our technological capabilities each generation and utterly transforming the economy again and again. Our ancestors would have presumed we would have used such powers to build utopia. But it was not so. When 1870-2010 ended, the world instead saw global warming; economic depression, uncertainty, and inequality; and broad rejection of the status quo. Brad DeLong's Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century (Basic Books, 2022) tells the story of how this unprecedented explosion of material wealth occurred, how it transformed the globe--and why it failed to deliver us to utopia. Of remarkable breadth and ambition, it uncovers the last century to have been less a march of progress than a slouch in the right direction. Javier Mejia is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Political Science Department at Stanford University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science-technology-and-society
From one of the world's leading economists, a grand narrative of the century that made us richer than ever, yet left us unsatisfied Before 1870, humanity lived in dire poverty, with a slow crawl of invention offset by a growing population. Then came a great shift: invention sprinted forward, doubling our technological capabilities each generation and utterly transforming the economy again and again. Our ancestors would have presumed we would have used such powers to build utopia. But it was not so. When 1870-2010 ended, the world instead saw global warming; economic depression, uncertainty, and inequality; and broad rejection of the status quo. Brad DeLong's Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century (Basic Books, 2022) tells the story of how this unprecedented explosion of material wealth occurred, how it transformed the globe--and why it failed to deliver us to utopia. Of remarkable breadth and ambition, it uncovers the last century to have been less a march of progress than a slouch in the right direction. Javier Mejia is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Political Science Department at Stanford University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/economics
From one of the world's leading economists, a grand narrative of the century that made us richer than ever, yet left us unsatisfied Before 1870, humanity lived in dire poverty, with a slow crawl of invention offset by a growing population. Then came a great shift: invention sprinted forward, doubling our technological capabilities each generation and utterly transforming the economy again and again. Our ancestors would have presumed we would have used such powers to build utopia. But it was not so. When 1870-2010 ended, the world instead saw global warming; economic depression, uncertainty, and inequality; and broad rejection of the status quo. Brad DeLong's Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century (Basic Books, 2022) tells the story of how this unprecedented explosion of material wealth occurred, how it transformed the globe--and why it failed to deliver us to utopia. Of remarkable breadth and ambition, it uncovers the last century to have been less a march of progress than a slouch in the right direction. Javier Mejia is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Political Science Department at Stanford University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/technology
From one of the world's leading economists, a grand narrative of the century that made us richer than ever, yet left us unsatisfied Before 1870, humanity lived in dire poverty, with a slow crawl of invention offset by a growing population. Then came a great shift: invention sprinted forward, doubling our technological capabilities each generation and utterly transforming the economy again and again. Our ancestors would have presumed we would have used such powers to build utopia. But it was not so. When 1870-2010 ended, the world instead saw global warming; economic depression, uncertainty, and inequality; and broad rejection of the status quo. Brad DeLong's Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century (Basic Books, 2022) tells the story of how this unprecedented explosion of material wealth occurred, how it transformed the globe--and why it failed to deliver us to utopia. Of remarkable breadth and ambition, it uncovers the last century to have been less a march of progress than a slouch in the right direction. Javier Mejia is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Political Science Department at Stanford University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/world-affairs
Hosted by Andrew Keen, Keen On features conversations with some of the world's leading thinkers and writers about the economic, political, and technological issues being discussed in the news, right now. In this episode, Andrew is joined by J. Bradford DeLong, author of Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century. J. Bradford DeLong, an economic historian, is a professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley. He was a deputy assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury during the Clinton administration. He writes a widely read economics blog, now at braddelong.substack.com. He lives in Berkeley, California. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Key Insights:Be pragmatic! Do what works! Reinforce success! Abandon failure!CHIPS & IRA are only, at most, 1/4 of what we should be doing.These are both very good things to do, as far as running a successful industrial policy is concerned.Maybe there was something to Biden’s claims that he could lead congress after all.Hexapodia!References:Matt Alt: Pure Invention: How Japan Made the Modern World Stephen S. Cohen & J. Bradford DeLong (2016): Concrete Economics: The Hamiltonian Approach to Economic Policy (Cambridge: HBS Press, 978-1422189818) J. Bradford DeLong (2022): Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the 20th Century (New York: Basic Books, 978-0465019595) Chalmers Johnson (1982): MITI and the Japanese Miracle: The Growth of Industrial Policy, 1925-1975 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 978-0804712064) W. David Marx (): Ametora: How Japan Saved American Style +, of course:Vernor Vinge: A Fire Upon the Deep Get full access to Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality at braddelong.substack.com/subscribe
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: The Most Important Century: The Animation, published by Writer on July 24, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum. This is a linkpost for the Rational Animations' video based on The Most Important Century sequence of posts by Holden Karnofsky.Below, the whole script of the video.Matthew Barnett has written most of it. Several paragraphs were written by Ajeya Cotra, during the feedback process. Holden Karnofsky has also reviewed the script and made suggestions. I made some light edits and additions.Matthew has also made some additions that weren't in the original sequence by Holden.Crossposted to LessWrong.------------------------------------------------------------------ A very unusual time period The celebrated science fiction author and chemistry professor Isaac Asimov once cataloged a history of inventions and scientific discoveries throughout all of human history. While incomplete, his effort still reveals something intriguing about our current era. Out of the 694 pages in Asimov's book, 553 pages documented inventions and discoveries since 1500, even though his book starts in 4 million BC. In other words, throughout human history, most scientific innovation has come relatively recently, within only the last few hundred years. Other historical trends paint a similar picture. For example, here's a chart of world population since 10,000 BC. For nearly all of human history up until quite recently, there weren't very many people on Earth. It took until about 1800 for the population to reach one billion people, and just two hundred years later – a blink of an eye compared to how long our species has been around – Earth reached six billion people. Economic historian Bradford DeLong attempted to piece together the total world economic production over the last million years. By its nature, his reconstruction of the historical data is speculative, but the rough story it tells is consistent with the aforementioned historical trends in population and technology. In the millenia preceding the current era, economic growth – by which we mean growth in how much valuable stuff humanity as a whole can produce – was extremely slow. Now, growth is much faster. Bradford DeLong's data provides historians a quantitative account of what they already know from reading narratives written in the distant past. For nearly all of human history, people lived similarly to the way their grandparents lived. Unlike what we expect today, most people did not see major changes in living standards, technology, and economic production over their lifetimes. To be sure, people were aware that empires rose and fell, infectious disease ravaged communities, and wars were fought. Individual humans saw profound change in their own lives, through the births and deaths of those they loved, cultural change, and migration. But the idea of a qualitatively different mode of life, with electricity, computers and the prospect of thermonuclear war – that's all come extremely recently on historical timescales. As new technologies were developed, quality of life shot up in various ways. For ten year olds, life expectancy was once under 60 all over the world. Now, in many nations, a ten year old can expect to live to the age of 80. With progress in automating food production, fewer people now are required to grow food. As a result, our time has been freed to pursue different activities, for example, going to school. And it's not just technology that changed. In the past, people took for granted some social institutions that had existed for thousands of years, such as the monarchy and chattel slavery. In the midst of the industrial revolution, these institutions began to vanish. Writing in 1763, the eminent British economist Adam Smith wrote that slavery “takes place in all societies at their beginning, and proceeds from t...
Link to original articleWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: The Most Important Century: The Animation, published by Writer on July 24, 2022 on LessWrong. This is a linkpost for the Rational Animations' video based on The Most Important Century sequence of posts by Holden Karnofsky.Below, the whole script of the video.Matthew Barnett has written most of it. Several paragraphs were written by Ajeya Cotra, during the feedback process. Holden Karnofsky has also reviewed the script and made suggestions. I made some light edits and additions.Crossposted to the EA-Forum.------------------------------------------------------------------ A very unusual time period The celebrated science fiction author and chemistry professor Isaac Asimov once cataloged a history of inventions and scientific discoveries throughout all of human history. While incomplete, his effort still reveals something intriguing about our current era. Out of the 694 pages in Asimov's book, 553 pages documented inventions and discoveries since 1500, even though his book starts in 4 million BC. In other words, throughout human history, most scientific innovation has come relatively recently, within only the last few hundred years. Other historical trends paint a similar picture. For example, here's a chart of world population since 10,000 BC. For nearly all of human history up until quite recently, there weren't very many people on Earth. It took until about 1800 for the population to reach one billion people, and just two hundred years later – a blink of an eye compared to how long our species has been around – Earth reached six billion people. Economic historian Bradford DeLong attempted to piece together the total world economic production over the last million years. By its nature, his reconstruction of the historical data is speculative, but the rough story it tells is consistent with the aforementioned historical trends in population and technology. In the millenia preceding the current era, economic growth – by which we mean growth in how much valuable stuff humanity as a whole can produce – was extremely slow. Now, growth is much faster. Bradford DeLong's data provides historians a quantitative account of what they already know from reading narratives written in the distant past. For nearly all of human history, people lived similarly to the way their grandparents lived. Unlike what we expect today, most people did not see major changes in living standards, technology, and economic production over their lifetimes. To be sure, people were aware that empires rose and fell, infectious disease ravaged communities, and wars were fought. Individual humans saw profound change in their own lives, through the births and deaths of those they loved, cultural change, and migration. But the idea of a qualitatively different mode of life, with electricity, computers and the prospect of thermonuclear war – that's all come extremely recently on historical timescales. As new technologies were developed, quality of life shot up in various ways. For ten year olds, life expectancy was once under 60 all over the world. Now, in many nations, a ten year old can expect to live to the age of 80. With progress in automating food production, fewer people now are required to grow food. As a result, our time has been freed to pursue different activities, for example, going to school. And it's not just technology that changed. In the past, people took for granted some social institutions that had existed for thousands of years, such as the monarchy and chattel slavery. In the midst of the industrial revolution, these institutions began to vanish. Writing in 1763, the eminent British economist Adam Smith wrote that slavery “takes place in all societies at their beginning, and proceeds from that tyrannic disposition which may almost be said to be natural to mankind.” While Adam Smith persona...
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: The Most Important Century: The Animation, published by Writer on July 24, 2022 on LessWrong. This is a linkpost for the Rational Animations' video based on The Most Important Century sequence of posts by Holden Karnofsky.Below, the whole script of the video.Matthew Barnett has written most of it. Several paragraphs were written by Ajeya Cotra, during the feedback process. Holden Karnofsky has also reviewed the script and made suggestions. I made some light edits and additions.Crossposted to the EA-Forum.------------------------------------------------------------------ A very unusual time period The celebrated science fiction author and chemistry professor Isaac Asimov once cataloged a history of inventions and scientific discoveries throughout all of human history. While incomplete, his effort still reveals something intriguing about our current era. Out of the 694 pages in Asimov's book, 553 pages documented inventions and discoveries since 1500, even though his book starts in 4 million BC. In other words, throughout human history, most scientific innovation has come relatively recently, within only the last few hundred years. Other historical trends paint a similar picture. For example, here's a chart of world population since 10,000 BC. For nearly all of human history up until quite recently, there weren't very many people on Earth. It took until about 1800 for the population to reach one billion people, and just two hundred years later – a blink of an eye compared to how long our species has been around – Earth reached six billion people. Economic historian Bradford DeLong attempted to piece together the total world economic production over the last million years. By its nature, his reconstruction of the historical data is speculative, but the rough story it tells is consistent with the aforementioned historical trends in population and technology. In the millenia preceding the current era, economic growth – by which we mean growth in how much valuable stuff humanity as a whole can produce – was extremely slow. Now, growth is much faster. Bradford DeLong's data provides historians a quantitative account of what they already know from reading narratives written in the distant past. For nearly all of human history, people lived similarly to the way their grandparents lived. Unlike what we expect today, most people did not see major changes in living standards, technology, and economic production over their lifetimes. To be sure, people were aware that empires rose and fell, infectious disease ravaged communities, and wars were fought. Individual humans saw profound change in their own lives, through the births and deaths of those they loved, cultural change, and migration. But the idea of a qualitatively different mode of life, with electricity, computers and the prospect of thermonuclear war – that's all come extremely recently on historical timescales. As new technologies were developed, quality of life shot up in various ways. For ten year olds, life expectancy was once under 60 all over the world. Now, in many nations, a ten year old can expect to live to the age of 80. With progress in automating food production, fewer people now are required to grow food. As a result, our time has been freed to pursue different activities, for example, going to school. And it's not just technology that changed. In the past, people took for granted some social institutions that had existed for thousands of years, such as the monarchy and chattel slavery. In the midst of the industrial revolution, these institutions began to vanish. Writing in 1763, the eminent British economist Adam Smith wrote that slavery “takes place in all societies at their beginning, and proceeds from that tyrannic disposition which may almost be said to be natural to mankind.” While Adam Smith persona...
Key Insights:Not so much key insights, as key questions: (a) What are the teams? (b) 1920, 1948, 1951, 1974, or 1980? (c) Are there any true members of Team Transitory left? (d) Who is on Team The-Fed-Has-Got-This? (e) Who is on Team Hit-the-Economy-on-the-Head-with-a-Brick? (f) What inflation rate do we want to support economic reopening? (g) What inflation rate do we want to support the sectoral rebalancing—towards goods production, & towards the deliverator economy? (h) How would expected inflation get embedded in the labor market without strong unions and multi-year contracts? (i) How would expected inflation get embedded in the labor market without it first showing up in out-year bond market breakevens?With Putin’s invasion-of-Ukraine supply shock, Summers’s position looks a lot strongerNear the zero-lower-bound, there is a high option value to waiting to raiseThat optionality still seems to us, for the moment, to be the major considerationThus it is too early to hit the economy on the head with a brick—even the small 5%-interest-rates brickBut it is not too early for Jay Powell to furrow his brow and say that the Fed is considering Larry Summers’s arguments very carefully.Noah Smith finds that he is much more in accord with Larry Summers than he thought he would be.Larry and Ezra like Brad’s forthcoming Slouching Towards UtopiaElon Musk should take over TwitterHexapodia!Charts:References:J. Bradford DeLong (2022): Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the 20th Century (New York: Basic Books, 978-0465019595) J. Bradford DeLong: America’s Macroeconomic Outlook Ezra Klein & Larry Summers: I Keep Hoping Larry Summers Is Wrong: What If He Isn’t?: The Ezra Klein Show Paul Krugman: High Inflation in the United States: Newsletter 2022-03-29 John Scalzi: The Kaiju Preservation Society Noah Smith: When Will the Fed Drop the Hammer? Neal Stephenson: Snow Crash +, of course:Vernor Vinge: A Fire Upon the Deep Get full access to Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality at braddelong.substack.com/subscribe
durée : 00:06:05 - Le Tour du monde des idées - par : Brice Couturier - Tête pensante du Parti démocrate, Bradford DeLong critique la tendance américaine à employer allusions et euphémismes quand il s'agit de parler de la Chine et de Taïwan. A rebours de cette tendance floue, l'économiste conseille franchement à Xi Jinping de revoir sa ligne politique au sujet de l'île.
durée : 00:06:05 - Le Tour du monde des idées - par : Brice Couturier - Tête pensante du Parti démocrate, Bradford DeLong critique la tendance américaine à employer allusions et euphémismes quand il s'agit de parler de la Chine et de Taïwan. A rebours de cette tendance floue, l'économiste conseille franchement à Xi Jinping de revoir sa ligne politique au sujet de l'île.
For 200 years—from 1800 to 2000—first the Industrial Revolution Age and next the Modern Economic Growth Age rolled forward, bringing previously unimaginable wealth to the global north. And the global south fell further and further behind. Don’t get us wrong—life expectancy, nutrition standards, and material well-being in 2000 were all much higher in the global south in 2000 than in 1800. But the proportional gap vis-a-vis the global north had grown to staggering and awful proportions that were a scandal, a disgrace, and a crime. But since 2000 the worm may have turned: now it looks as though the global south—virtually the entire global south—is now “converging” and catching up to the global north.References:William Baumol (1986): Productivity, Convergence, & Welfare: What the Long-Run Data Show J. Bradford DeLong (1988): Productivity, Convergence, & Welfare: Comment Paul Krugman (1991): _ Increasing Returns and Economic Geography_ Lant Pritchett (1997): Divergence, Big Time Masahisa Fujita, Paul Krugman, & Anthony J. Venables (1999): The Spatial Economy: Cities, Regions, & International TradeAlberto Alesina, William Easterly, & Janina Matuszeski (2009): Artificial States Joe Studwell (2013): How Asia Works: Success and Failure In the World's Most Dynamic Region Noah Smith (2021): _All Futurism is Afrofuturism Dev Patel, Justin Sandefur, & Arvind Subramanian (2021): The New Era of Unconditional Convergence Michael Kremer, Jack Willis, & Yang You (2021): Converging to Convergence Noah Smith: Checking in on the Global South: ‘Developing countries are catching up, but not evenly… LINK: Twirlip of the Mists: Hexapodia as the Key InsightVernor Vinge: A Fire Upon the Deep Vernor Vinge: A Deepness in the Sky Get full access to Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality at braddelong.substack.com/subscribe
Right now the U.S. tech economy is booming, but what will be the long-term effects of automation and AI? Are robots about to steal our jobs? Will Facebook throw the next election? Is social democracy doomed to be a casualty of the tech revolution? To answer these questions and more, we're turning to UC Berkeley economics professor Bradford DeLong. He's in conversation with Ars editor-at-large Annalee Newitz. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices