Welcome to Econ Talk, Conversations for the Curious, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty.

I'm your host, Russ Roberts, of Sholem College in Jerusalem and Stanford University's Hoover Institution.

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Today is June 17th, 2025.

And my guest is economist, author, and podcaster Mike Munger of Duke University.

He hosts the podcast, The Answer is Transaction Costs.

And this is Mike's 50th appearance on Econ Talk, which makes him, of course, the Babe Ruth or

Henry Aaron of Econ Talk guests or the Barry Bonds if Mike uses steroids, which makes him, of course, the Babe Ruth or Henry Aaron of Econ Talk guests or the

Barry Bonds if Mike uses steroids, which I doubt, but could be. He was last year in January of 2025,

talking about whether Doge and Elon Musk will make a difference. And so far, he looks like he got

that one right. Mike, welcome back to Econ Talk.

Russ, it's a pleasure and it's hard to believe that it's 50. This can only mean that you are very old.

Exactly. Well, Econ Talk is. You have not aged at all.

No, I'm found a youth baby. I just want to also mention the listeners that we're recording this during

the Iran-Israel war that started a few days ago by one count or a few months over a year ago by a

different count. But I'm recording this at home, and I'm doing that because I need to be near a

bomb shelter. So if we get a, if some missiles come, I will have to run away, but I will come back.

But I mention that only because there may be some background noise and a different background

of this, of the video version of this. So I hope it's still acceptable.

Our topic for today is the essence of capitalism, which is a sufficiently broad topic to

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