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Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer

How Econ 101 upholds racist systems (with Joelle Gamble)

Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer

Civic Ventures

Business, Government, News, Politics

4.81.5K Ratings

🗓️ 14 July 2020

⏱️ 32 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The foundational metaphor of neoliberalism is that a rising tide lifts all boats. But, like many other assumptions in economic thought, that idea willfully ignores racism. Economist Joelle Gamble joins Jessyn and Nick to explain that when economists fail to scrutinize theories through the lens of race, they perpetuate racist outcomes. Plus, The Sadie Collective co-founder Fanta Traore describes how the economics field can take deliberate measures to address the exclusion of Black economists. Joelle Gamble is a principal with the reimagining capitalism team at Omidyar Network, where she focuses on topics related to building the power of working people and shaping a new economic paradigm. Joelle writes on topics of race, labor, and technology, and sits on the board of directors of the Roosevelt Institute. Twitter: @joelle_gamble @OmidyarNetwork Fanta Traore is a Senior Research Assistant at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and the co-founder and COO of The Sadie Collective. Twitter: @TheFantaTraore @SadieCollective Further reading: How economic assumptions uphold racist systems: https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/how-economic-assumptions-uphold-racist-systems An Open Letter to Economic Institutions In The Face of #BlackLivesMatter: https://medium.com/@sadiecollective/open-letter-to-economics-blm-5b38100e59b5 What the Big New Study About Race and Mobility Doesn’t Tell Us: https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/what-the-big-new-study-about-race-and-mobility-doesnt-tell-us/ Neoliberalism and Race: https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/53/neoliberalism-and-race/ Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer

Transcript

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0:00.0

Do you have questions about what this economic crisis means for the 2020 election?

0:04.7

Ask us. Use the contact page on our website at pitchfork economics.com

0:09.2

or leave us a voicemail at 731, 388, 9334, and we'll answer your questions on an upcoming

0:16.7

episode with political experts and campaign veterans.

0:20.9

A rising tide can't lift all boats if there are structures in the way keeping people from succeeding.

0:27.0

These neoliberal myths uphold and perpetuate racial inequities in our economic system.

0:33.5

GDP becomes essentially a racist instrument.

0:37.4

It's this way of teaching people that everyone is doing well when in fact most people are not in particular

0:46.6

black and brown Americans. From the offices of Civic Ventures in downtown Seattle, this is Pitch Fork Economics with

0:58.6

Nick Hanauer, where we explore everything they forgot to teach you in Econ 101.

1:09.0

I'm Nick Henauer, founder of Civic Ventures.

1:12.0

I'm Jessen Farrell and I'm Senior Vice President at Civic Ventures and a former state

1:16.6

legislator.

1:20.2

In today's episode, we're going to explore the intersection of economics and race and that racism shapes how economics is taught and practiced.

1:30.0

And in particular, we're going to be looking at several myths that are familiar to all of us who have studied neoliberalism and talk about how these neoliberal myths uphold

1:44.8

and perpetuate racial inequities in our economic system.

1:48.9

Yeah, myths like a rising tide lifts all boats.

1:54.1

Exactly.

1:54.8

That's a really good one.

1:56.9

I mean, clearly there is a myth embedded in that

2:01.0

that is quite frankly wrong, and the way it plays out in particular for black Americans is especially pernicious because when you look at say aggregate data around how you know how the economy is doing.

2:14.7

You look at broad GDP numbers, those mask

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