And I think that is true to this day.ĭG: So we used to have a competitive ideological market, and now we don't? And policymakers both on the right and on the left took that being pro-business was a good thing. People started to use the two interchangeably. ![]() ![]() Once that pressure disappeared and it became cool not only on the right-hand side of the political spectrum, but also the left-hand side of the political spectrum to be businessmen and be entrepreneurial and make money, then these two distinctions started to fade away. Those two things often have almost nothing to do with one another, and in fact are often at odds. I've always phrased it slightly differently, as confusing the narrow interest of a few capitalists with the broad interests of capitalism. NH: I think this is a great point, and a distinction that is so important in understanding where policy went wrong. It's very bad when, as policymakers, we confuse the interests of a businessman with the interest of the market itself, and the community at large. This is not necessarily bad if it's done at the individual level, as long as we think about maintaining the system's competitiveness overall. But the moment they are in, they want to increase the barrier to entry in order to make more profits, and so all of a sudden their interest is to make markets less competitive, less functioning, to gain more profits. And I think they are very different, because businessmen and businesswomen love competition and free markets when they want to enter a new line of business. First of all, we hear these two terms used interchangeably every day, especially in the political arena. If you could just explain the difference as simply as you can, that would be great. In your book "A Capitalism for the People," you make this really important distinction between pro-market and pro-business. So I think that I'm my own kind of economist.ĭG: That's good, because we usually use that term as a pejorative. And then I was told that I cannot represent the Chicago School. Luigi Zingales: No, because first of all I don't know what the "Chicago School" is anymore. ĭavid Goldstein: So is it fair to describe you as an authentic Chicago School economist? What follows is an edited and abridged version of the conversation for the full discussion, please download and subscribe to Pitchfork Economics. Zingales, the author of " A Capitalism for the People: Recapturing the Lost Genius of American Prosperity," is also the director of the Stiegler Center, which studies how vested interests are subverting the competitive market economy. ![]() Nick Hanauer and David Goldstein had a long conversation about the shifting relationship between economics, politics, and business with Luigi Zingales, an esteemed professor of finance at the University of Chicago in the Booth School of Business. But over time, that idea lost ground, with both Democrats and Republicans embracing the concept of unfettering markets as the only economic good. At one point in American history, regulations were understood as a positive - a force for the public good. ![]() In the latest episode of the Pitchfork Economics podcast, we sought to explore the idea of how our national relationship with regulation has changed. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders.
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