The Big Myth: Loathing Government and Loving the ‘Free’ Market

The Politics Guys

Michael Baranowski

Politics, News

4.4 • 783 Ratings

🗓️ 3 May 2023

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Mike talks with Harvard historian of science Naomi Oreskes and Cal Tech historian of science Erik Conway. They've -coauthored a number of books including Merchants of Doubt, and The Collapse of Western Civilization. Their latest book is The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market, which is the focus of this discussion. Topics Mike, Naomi, and Erik discuss include: - the Big Myth and the Tripod of Freedom - why power companies once argued against electric power - government regulation and fears of communism - Friedrich Hayek and the influence of The Road to Serfdom - fear of government vs fear of markets - the Big Myth and our response to COVID-19 - the Big Myth and climate change - combatting the Big Myth (for those who believe it’s a myth) Naomi Oreskes on Twitter Erik Conway on Twitter The Politics Guys on Facebook | Twitter Listener support helps make The Politics Guys possible. You can support us or change your level of support at patreon.com/politicsguys or politicsguys.com/support. On Venmo, we’re @PoliticsGuys. Interested in starting your own podcast? Check out RedCircle, home of The Politics Guys. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-politics-guys/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Atheists, agnostics, long-haired, weirdos, short-haired, weirdos, banal,
0:05.3	I'm the government, love the government, love the government, the government,
0:09.5	love the government, the government,
0:11.9	welcome to the politics, guys, a place for bipartisan, rational, and civil debate on American
0:16.4	politics and policy.
0:17.8	I'm Michael Baranowski, Professor of Political Science at Northern Kentucky University.
0:22.3	I'm joined today by two historians of science, Harvard's Naomi Oreskes and Eric Conway from Caltech.
0:29.2	They've co-authored a number of books, including Merchants of Doubt, The Collapse of Western Civilization,
0:35.7	and their latest book, The Big Myth, How American Business
0:39.4	taught us to loathe government and love the free market, which we'll be talking about today.
0:44.9	Naomi and Eric, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for having us. So, you know, I should start off by saying
0:51.0	we are a bipartisan podcast. And as as such we have a number of listeners
0:56.6	who probably after they heard the title of your book are thinking themselves something like
1:00.7	great there's another anti-capitalism scree from the progressive left but I don't think it
1:07.9	would be really fair to say that you're anti-capitalism.
1:12.6	And so I thought we could start with that.
1:15.4	And maybe, Naomi, if you want to start with this, how would you characterize your view of capitalism and big business in the book?
1:24.0	Well, you're absolutely right.
1:25.4	We're not anti-capitalism.
1:26.9	What we're really doing is trying to call attention to a set of myths about capitalism,
1:32.4	myths that we think have been destructive because they've prevented us from using capitalism
1:37.4	in a way that benefits all people and that protects the environment, protects workers.
	...

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