The question is, has U.S. been as successful as it really claims in terms of what should be our

objective, which is maximizing the well-being of most citizens in our society?

I'm Bethany McLean. Did you ever have a moment of doubt about capitalism and whether greed's a good idea?

And I'm Luigi Zengalis.

We have socialism for the very rich, rugged individualism for the poor.

And this is Capital Isn't, a podcast about what is working in capitalism.

First of all, tell me, is there some society you know that doesn't run on greed?

And most importantly, what isn't? We ought to do better by the people that get left behind.

I don't think we shouldn't kill the capital system in the process.

In the last 60 years, there's been no economists who had contributed to exposing more eased

of capitalists than Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz.

So, of course, I know his name, but can you briefly explain to our listeners why it is that Stiglitz has been so influential?

And of course, the operative word is briefly.

Yes, it was.

So I would say that one of the main arguments in favor of free markets is that in the absence

of government intervention, a competitive economy delivers what we call an efficient outcome

or technically a Pareto optimum.

This is the claim that is implicit in Adam Smith, invisible hand,

but was only formally proved in the late 50s. And then, starting in the late 60s,

Joe Stiglitz, with other people like Ackerloff and Spence, by the way, all three of these

got the Nobel Prize in 2001 for this, show that when you introduce the possibility

that people have different information, markets really fail to deliver an efficient outcome.

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