Robert Frank on Competition, Government, and Darwin

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4.7 • 4.3K Ratings

🗓️ 12 September 2011

⏱️ 64 minutes

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Summary

Robert Frank of Cornell University and author of The Darwin Economy talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about competition, government and the relevance of Darwin for economics. In a lively and spirited discussion, Frank argues that because people care about their relative standing with their neighbors, standard conclusions about the virtues of competition are misleading. He argues that competition is often wasteful and he suggests directions for tax policy and other forms of government intervention to take these effects into accounts.

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	another information related to today's conversation. Our email address is mail at econtalk.org. We'd
0:33.6	love to hear from you.
0:35.5	Today is September 8th, 2011, and my guest is Robert Frank, the H.J. Lewis Professor of
0:44.5	Management and Professor of Economics at Cornell University. His latest book is the Darwin
0:49.6	Economy. Bob, welcome back to econtalk.
0:51.6	Always fun to talk to you, Russ.
0:53.6	Bob, your book attempts to make a case for government regulation on libertarian terms and
1:00.0	you challenge those of us who have a free market bent to confront what you say are contradictions
1:08.8	in our viewpoint or possible contradictions. It's also an indictment of anti-government
1:14.6	arguments generally, and I want to start with that indictment and then turn to your defense
1:18.0	of government intervention. So you start the book by arguing that we're in a terrible
1:21.6	mess. You call it paralysis because of an anti-government mentality and ideology. What's
1:27.8	the argument there?
1:28.8	You know, we've been hearing, I think it accelerated when Ronald Reagan came onto the national stage,
1:36.3	but the last several decades at least have seen a crescendo of anti-government rhetoric
1:43.2	that if we could just get government out of the way, everything would be fine. Government,
1:47.9	the source of the problem, Grovernorquist, famous quote, I don't want to eliminate government,
1:53.3	I just want to shrink it to the point where I could haul it into my bathroom and drown
1:57.7	it in the bathtub. I think there is a general skepticism of government, and so I think
	...

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