#457 – Jennifer Burns: Milton Friedman, Ayn Rand, Economics, Capitalism, Freedom

Lex Fridman Podcast

Lex Fridman

Philosophy, Society & Culture, Science, Technology

4.7 • 13K Ratings

🗓️ 19 January 2025

⏱️ 244 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Jennifer Burns is a historian of ideas, focusing on the evolution of economic, political, and social ideas in the United States in the 20th century. She wrote two biographies, one on Milton Friedman, and the other on Ayn Rand.
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EPISODE LINKS:
Jennifer's X: https://x.com/profburns
Jennifer's Website: https://www.jenniferburns.org

Jennifer's Books:
Milton Friedman biography: https://amzn.to/4hfy1HO
Ayn Rand biography: https://amzn.to/4afr3A0

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OUTLINE:
(00:00) - Introduction
(10:05) - Milton Friedman
(24:58) - The Great Depression
(39:15) - Schools of economic thought
(50:22) - Keynesian economics
(58:10) - Laissez-faire
(1:06:00) - Friedrich Hayek
(1:11:18) - Money and monetarism
(1:26:03) - Stagflation
(1:30:56) - Moral case for capitalism
(1:34:53) - Freedom
(1:39:51) - Ethics of competition
(1:43:37) - Win-win solutions
(1:45:26) - Corruption
(1:47:51) - Government intervention
(1:54:10) - Conservatism
(2:00:33) - Donald Trump
(2:03:09) - Inflation
(2:07:38) - DOGE
(2:12:58) - Javier Milei
(2:18:03) - Richard Nixon
(2:25:17) - Ronald Reagan
(2:28:24) - Cryptocurrency
(2:43:40) - Ayn Rand
(2:51:18) - The Fountainhead
(3:02:58) - Sex and power dynamics
(3:19:04) - Evolution of ideas in history
(3:26:32) - Postmodernism
(3:37:33) - Advice to students
(3:45:50) - Lex reflects on Volodymyr Zelenskyy interview

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The following is a conversation with Jennifer Burns, a historian of ideas, including the
0:07.3	evolution of economic, political, and social ideas in the United States in the 20th century to
0:13.4	today.
0:15.0	She wrote two biographies, one on Milton Friedman and the other on Iron Rand, both of which I highly recommend.
0:23.9	This was a super technical and super fascinating conversation.
0:29.6	At the end, I make a few comments about my previous conversation with President Zelensky,
0:35.4	for those of you who may be interested.
0:38.8	And now, a quick few second mention of each sponsor.
0:41.9	Check them out in the description.
0:43.5	It's the best way to support this podcast.
0:45.8	We got Brain.fm for Focus, GitHub for programming and AI,
0:52.4	element for delicious electrolytes, Shopify for merch, and AG1 for health.
0:59.0	She's wisely, my friends. Also, if you want to get in touch with me, go tolexstreamin.com
1:04.5	slash contact, and now, onto the full ad reads. As always, no ads in the middle. I try to make
1:10.0	this interesting, but if you
1:11.5	must skip them, please still check out our sponsors. If I could only speak English, I enjoy their
1:17.2	stuff. Maybe you will too. Click the links by the stuff. Glory shall be ours. This episode is
1:26.9	brought to you by Brain.fm, a platform that offers music specifically
1:31.5	made for focus. I talk about listening to brown noise a lot. It's actually funny, but I don't
1:38.6	believe Brain.fm has brown noise, but that's not what I use it for.
1:47.8	I usually play brown noise because basically everything has brown noise.
1:49.4	YouTube has brown noise.
	...

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