Luigi Zingales on Capitalism and Crony Capitalism

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4.7 • 4.3K Ratings

🗓️ 2 July 2012

⏱️ 66 minutes

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Summary

Luigi Zingales of the University of Chicago and author of A Capitalism for the People talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the ideas in his book. Zingales argues that the financial sector has used its political power to enhance the size of the sector and the compensations executives receive. This is symptomatic of a larger problem where special interests steer resources and favors based on their political influence. Zingales argues for a capitalism for the people rather than a capitalism for cronies or the politically powerful. The conversation concludes with a plea by Zingales to his fellow economists to speak out against behavior that is legal but immoral--lobbying Congress for special treatment that exploits others to benefit one's own industry, for example.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Econ Talk, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty. I'm your host Russ Roberts
0:13.9	of George Mason University and Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Our website is econtalk.org
0:21.2	where you can subscribe, find other episodes, comment on this podcast, and find links to
0:26.5	other information related to today's conversation. Our email address is mailadicontalk.org. We'd
0:33.6	love to hear from you.
0:36.7	Today is June 19, 2012, and my guest is Luigi Zingales, Robert McCormick Professor of Entrepreneurship
0:45.4	and Finance at the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago. His latest book
0:50.2	is a capitalism for the people. Luigi, welcome to econtalk.
0:56.2	Thank you.
0:57.4	Your book is a really fantastic ride through a whole bunch of interesting economic and philosophical
1:06.0	and ethical issues related to the current state of the economy and how it might become
1:11.3	better. I hope we can capture some of the flavor of that book in this podcast, but I want
1:16.0	to recommend it very strongly to our listeners as just a fascinating and very educational
1:24.1	look at a wide range of issues that many of which we have touched on this podcast, but
1:30.0	Luigi, you come up with some different takes and some different explanations, and it's
1:34.3	a very interesting book.
1:36.3	You start off by talking about the United States history and capitalism's history in the
1:42.0	United States, and you talk about meritocracy and the idea that it is at risk.
1:49.6	Talk about what you mean by meritocracy and why you think it is at risk in America these
1:54.1	days.
1:55.1	So, it may talk at see is a system where reward and responsibility is attributed on the
2:05.3	basis of quality and merit, so you promote the most capable manager.
	...

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