Garett Jones on Democracy (More or Less)

Conversations with Tyler

Society & Culture, Education

4.8 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 26 February 2020

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Why is Garett Jones willing to write books about risky topics like the case for reducing democratic accountability? Is it the iconoclastic Mason econ culture? Supportive colleagues like Tyler? Those help, but what ultimately gives Garett peace of mind is that he'll never have to go hungry because he has a broad and deep knowledge of econometric tools. It's a skillset he recommends to all research economists precisely so they can take bigger risks in their careers—or at least be well-prepared to shape policy in an unelected position at a central bank.

Garett joined Tyler to discuss his book 10% Less Democracy, including why America shouldn't be run by bondholders, what single reform would most effectively achieve more limited democracy, how markets shape cognitive skills, the three important P's of the repeated prisoner's dilemma, why French cuisine is still underrated, Buchanan vs. Tullock, Larry David vs. Seinfeld, the biggest mistake in Twitter macroeconomics, the biggest challenges facing the Mormon church, what studying to be a sommelier taught him about economics, the Garett Jones vision of America, and more.

Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links.

Recorded January 10th, 2020

Other ways to connect

Follow us on Twitter and Instagram
Follow Tyler on Twitter
Follow Garett on Twitter
Email us: cowenconvos@mercatus.gmu.edu
Subscribe at our newsletter page to have the latest Conversations with Tyler news sent straight to your inbox.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Conversations with Tyler is produced by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University,
0:08.3	bridging the gap between academic ideas and real-world problems.
0:12.5	Learn more at mercatis.org.
0:15.2	And for more conversations, including videos, transcripts, and upcoming dates, visit
0:20.4	ConversationsWithT Tyler.com.
0:27.0	I'm here today with my friend and colleague, Garrett Jones.
0:30.3	Garrett has a new book coming out called, 10% Less Democracy.
0:34.4	Why you should trust elites a little more and the masses a little less.
0:38.2	And Garrett, of course, being my colleague, is right here at George Mason University.
0:42.0	Garrett, welcome.
0:43.0	Thanks for having me.
0:44.2	As usual, the opening question comes completely from left field.
0:48.1	Let's say we had a government that would just strictly run by its bondholders.
0:52.3	What would the biases in that arrangement be and how good or bad would it be it solving
0:55.6	which problems?
0:56.6	Well, one problem is that they would care just about the profitability of the government
1:02.0	and not the productivity of the economy.
1:04.2	So it's easy to imagine great horrors happening in exactly that situation.
1:08.7	The bondholders are running the government, then they're going to only care about the
1:14.1	gap between government revenues and government costs.
1:17.6	And in some parts of the economy, that would probably lead to them imposing things like
1:21.1	slavery, massive restrictions of personal freedoms.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Conversations with Tyler, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Conversations with Tyler and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.