WEBVTT - Economists Win Worst Nobel Prize Yet, Asked to Please Stop 0:00:01.840 --> 0:00:08.639 Al Zone Media, No Bell Prize, Welcome to it could 0:00:08.640 --> 0:00:12.480 happen here a podcast about Nobel Prizes. 0:00:13.240 --> 0:00:16.159 I guess I'm your host. VA wog with Me with Me? 0:00:16.239 --> 0:00:19.760 Is James Heimia excited to hear about the dynamite guy prices. 0:00:20.400 --> 0:00:22.600 Yeah, so as people I think are aware. 0:00:22.960 --> 0:00:26.120 The man who invented dynamite established a bunch of prizes 0:00:26.280 --> 0:00:29.720 to be like the pinnacle of human achievement. Right, every 0:00:29.800 --> 0:00:32.440 years decided I'm a bunch of judges and you know, 0:00:32.479 --> 0:00:34.599 and this year in the Nobel Prize in Physics, right, 0:00:34.640 --> 0:00:39.000 Nobel Prize in Physics went to two guys who did 0:00:39.040 --> 0:00:41.480 a whole bunch of the sort of fundamental basic work 0:00:41.479 --> 0:00:44.599 on what became machine learning algorithms. And as annoying as 0:00:44.640 --> 0:00:48.120 modern AI is, like machine learning algorithms has fundamentally changed 0:00:48.120 --> 0:00:50.800 the way that science works. It changed the strong and 0:00:50.800 --> 0:00:53.120 I've used it. I used the new astronomy like there's 0:00:53.200 --> 0:00:55.800 all this, you know, it has fundamentally changed the way 0:00:55.840 --> 0:00:57.080 that humanity functions. 0:00:57.560 --> 0:00:59.560 Yeah, it's an important discovery. 0:00:59.720 --> 0:01:02.400 Yeah, and you know, the Nobel Prize in Medicine went 0:01:02.520 --> 0:01:07.200 to a group of people who discovered micro RNA, which 0:01:07.280 --> 0:01:10.880 is like a different type of RNA that fundamentally changed 0:01:11.040 --> 0:01:15.280 the way that we understand how like gene regulation works. 0:01:15.600 --> 0:01:19.479 This is like a fundamental path breaking thing in biology. 0:01:19.560 --> 0:01:21.200 They got that, They got the fucking medicine Noble price 0:01:21.240 --> 0:01:25.320 for the Nobel Prize in economics went to three guys 0:01:25.400 --> 0:01:29.840 who discovered that institutions affect prosperity. 0:01:30.360 --> 0:01:32.120 Huge groundbreaking shit. 0:01:32.120 --> 0:01:38.200 It's like economists don't discover shit, they just they just 0:01:38.280 --> 0:01:41.480 say shit, and then other economists are like, yeah, cool. 0:01:41.520 --> 0:01:42.320 This is okay. 0:01:42.680 --> 0:01:45.120 So when I was originally platting this episode, this is 0:01:45.160 --> 0:01:47.440 going to be an episode about the fake Nobel Prize, 0:01:47.440 --> 0:01:49.520 which is the economics Nobel Prize, which you've talked about 0:01:49.520 --> 0:01:51.600 on the show before. But it's worth saying again this 0:01:51.680 --> 0:01:54.040 is not a real Nobel Prize, Like, this is not 0:01:54.120 --> 0:01:56.560 one of the prizes that was established by Alfred Nobel. 0:01:56.960 --> 0:02:00.200 This was a thing established by the sweetest central at 0:02:00.240 --> 0:02:03.520 as a way to push neoliberal economics new classical economics. 0:02:03.880 --> 0:02:08.480 And every year they're always very stupid. It is the thing, right, 0:02:09.080 --> 0:02:11.520 And and my plan for this episode because I started 0:02:11.560 --> 0:02:13.639 seeing stuff about this Nobel Prize and I was looking 0:02:13.680 --> 0:02:14.880 at this and I was like, this is the this 0:02:14.960 --> 0:02:16.839 is the one of the dumbest ones they've had since 0:02:16.880 --> 0:02:18.840 they gave out one in the two thousands for realizing 0:02:18.840 --> 0:02:23.200 that people could simply not make a trade. Like but 0:02:23.760 --> 0:02:25.359 I was like, Okay, I'm going to go read all 0:02:25.400 --> 0:02:27.760 of these papers, right, we're gonna come back, We're gonna 0:02:27.800 --> 0:02:28.919 have a detail analysis of it. 0:02:28.960 --> 0:02:32.400 And and I'm reading these papers and it's like it's nothing. 0:02:33.520 --> 0:02:37.400 These three economists are They're from what's called institutional economics. 0:02:37.400 --> 0:02:40.000 These are supposed to be the smart ones, right, these 0:02:40.000 --> 0:02:42.720 are These are the economists that like the neoclassical economists 0:02:42.720 --> 0:02:45.200 have to bring in, like the normal neoclassical econmomts have 0:02:45.240 --> 0:02:47.680 to bring in because their models don't work right. And 0:02:47.720 --> 0:02:49.280 the thing and the thing that makes them like quote 0:02:49.320 --> 0:02:51.760 unquote smart is that they understand the institutions exist, and 0:02:51.800 --> 0:02:54.520 they know how to use really really basic game theory models. 0:02:55.600 --> 0:02:58.960 And this makes them like the cutting edge, the absolute 0:02:58.960 --> 0:03:03.200 elite cutting edge of borgewiw economics, the front lines. 0:03:03.280 --> 0:03:04.440 What are these people discovered? 0:03:04.600 --> 0:03:06.800 I wanted to people win this prize for, right, Okay, 0:03:07.480 --> 0:03:09.960 the thing that they won this prize for, like the 0:03:10.000 --> 0:03:12.000 initial thing, and there's a couple of stuff that we'll 0:03:12.000 --> 0:03:13.520 get you in a second. But like, the big thing 0:03:13.800 --> 0:03:17.720 that they figured out is do a series of thunderously 0:03:17.840 --> 0:03:19.399 stupid regression analyzes. 0:03:20.120 --> 0:03:21.360 They discovered something. 0:03:22.000 --> 0:03:25.360 I don't even know how to frame the magnitude of 0:03:25.360 --> 0:03:28.360 this discovery, but it took them a shit ton of 0:03:28.480 --> 0:03:32.760 math and like a bunch of like tabulations of mortality 0:03:32.840 --> 0:03:37.760 data to discover that in some places European colonial powers 0:03:37.800 --> 0:03:41.040 formed settler colonies and in some places they established a 0:03:41.040 --> 0:03:43.440 colonial rule that wasn't based on settler colonies, and that 0:03:43.480 --> 0:03:48.280 these were different. This is what they won the Nobel 0:03:48.360 --> 0:03:51.560 Prize for. They did a bunch of regression analyzes and 0:03:51.640 --> 0:03:56.560 were like, holy shit, in some places the Europeans did 0:03:56.560 --> 0:03:59.200 setular qualities and in some places they didn't, and it 0:03:59.320 --> 0:04:01.600 had to do with like disease and a level of 0:04:01.600 --> 0:04:05.360 redictance from the indigenous population. They want a Nobel Prize 0:04:05.400 --> 0:04:08.760 in economics for this? Are you fucking kidding? 0:04:09.000 --> 0:04:11.400 Also also a paper that you could write for my 0:04:11.560 --> 0:04:14.400 history one ten class at community cottage. 0:04:15.080 --> 0:04:17.720 Okay, some of the discourse about this, right, the Marxist 0:04:17.720 --> 0:04:22.799 economist Sharamazar pointed out that like these fundamental observations were 0:04:22.839 --> 0:04:25.320 made by another guy we've talked about on this show 0:04:25.400 --> 0:04:27.440 the Red Again Marxist economist Paul Baran. 0:04:28.480 --> 0:04:30.600 And that's a good point. 0:04:30.839 --> 0:04:33.640 But also what I was thinking about how to do 0:04:33.680 --> 0:04:36.640 this episode, right, This isn't a thing like with like 0:04:36.720 --> 0:04:39.960 Donald Harris, Like we talked about Kamal Harris's dad's book, right, 0:04:40.000 --> 0:04:42.760 and that's that's a book where there's there's like ideas 0:04:42.800 --> 0:04:44.919 in it, right, Right, you can go through it and 0:04:44.960 --> 0:04:48.120 you can watch them developing ideas. You can't do that 0:04:48.160 --> 0:04:51.039 with this because these people are not developing ideas. They 0:04:51.040 --> 0:04:55.320 have discovered the most obvious things. They have read a 0:04:55.400 --> 0:04:57.960 single book about history, and they have attempted to use 0:04:58.000 --> 0:05:00.280 a bunch of regression analyzes to prove things that like 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:04.440 you can just read a Wikipedia article and discover about 0:05:04.440 --> 0:05:05.480 the course of colonization. 0:05:05.800 --> 0:05:07.920 Yeah, yeah, and then you can go back and to 0:05:08.000 --> 0:05:10.119 a bunch of aggression otities to produce something that everyone 0:05:10.160 --> 0:05:10.880 already needs. 0:05:10.960 --> 0:05:11.320 Yeah. 0:05:11.440 --> 0:05:13.400 And the place that I got to about this is 0:05:13.520 --> 0:05:16.880 I have the shoke about Maoism where all the things 0:05:16.880 --> 0:05:18.760 that people get from Maoism are things that you should 0:05:18.760 --> 0:05:20.960 have learned in elementary school. Like one of the most 0:05:20.960 --> 0:05:22.880 common things you get from Maoists like, ah, you have 0:05:22.920 --> 0:05:25.680 to read no investigation, no right to speak and like 0:05:26.360 --> 0:05:31.719 my friend, Okay, if you needed Maose Dung to tell 0:05:31.800 --> 0:05:34.920 you that you needed to you needed to research something 0:05:35.480 --> 0:05:39.599 before you talked about it. What the fuck happened in 0:05:39.720 --> 0:05:43.400 your like the rest of your life? Wrong with your life? 0:05:43.400 --> 0:05:45.760 What we're wrong with your education? Like what has gone 0:05:45.760 --> 0:05:47.599 wrong with the way you think about the world that 0:05:47.680 --> 0:05:52.240 you needed Maose Dung can tell you this, and this 0:05:52.000 --> 0:05:55.000 is this is what most Nobel prizes and economics are 0:05:55.000 --> 0:05:56.279 and this is the most. 0:05:56.120 --> 0:05:58.040 That it has ever been. Yeah. 0:05:58.080 --> 0:06:02.240 So basically their argument is that, like this is also 0:06:02.279 --> 0:06:05.599 an argument that Paul Baran makes is that like, okay, 0:06:05.640 --> 0:06:08.360 depending on whether you're dealing with a settuler quality or 0:06:08.560 --> 0:06:12.560 a sort of like India style like administrative colony, I 0:06:12.560 --> 0:06:14.720 guess I'm like a technical term for it. 0:06:14.600 --> 0:06:16.520 It gets like an extractive colony, where you have more 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:19.279 about extracted labor, raw materials and settling. 0:06:19.400 --> 0:06:21.720 Yeah, like that changes the kinds of institutions that are 0:06:21.720 --> 0:06:25.279 set up. And like, okay, you can if you want 0:06:25.320 --> 0:06:30.520 to credit Paul Baron for the discovery that like the 0:06:30.600 --> 0:06:35.640 settler colonies and like extractive colonies have different legal institutions 0:06:35.680 --> 0:06:37.600 and they function differently and that has had long range 0:06:37.640 --> 0:06:41.760 economic impacts like stretching into the future. But like this 0:06:41.880 --> 0:06:43.440 is something again that you can you can just you 0:06:43.480 --> 0:06:46.960 can find in a history book and immediately understand. And 0:06:47.000 --> 0:06:48.719 these people have tried to do this. They're trying to 0:06:48.720 --> 0:06:51.720 like track the difference in why we're like some colonies 0:06:51.760 --> 0:06:54.760 more prosperous later than other colonies. Right, They're they're trying 0:06:54.800 --> 0:06:57.760 to track this process through a whole bunch of incredibly 0:06:57.800 --> 0:07:01.599 sketchy regression analyzes and we your assumptions about what income is. 0:07:01.640 --> 0:07:04.120 They're trying to track like why was it that like 0:07:04.279 --> 0:07:07.520 China and Turkey were like rich in the fifteen hundreds, 0:07:07.720 --> 0:07:09.640 but they ceased to be rich after that. 0:07:09.760 --> 0:07:10.120 Oh sick. 0:07:10.160 --> 0:07:13.040 They're doing a fucking Jared Diamond. Yeah, they're doing a 0:07:13.080 --> 0:07:14.000 West and the Rest. 0:07:14.120 --> 0:07:17.000 Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's wonder a Jerediamond bullshit, except 0:07:17.080 --> 0:07:21.240 you know with China standard of living in Europe, if 0:07:21.280 --> 0:07:23.200 you actually go back to the historical record and aren't 0:07:23.200 --> 0:07:27.960 doing their like stupid weird like using population density as 0:07:28.000 --> 0:07:31.480 an index for stuff, whether they start bringing malfus into it. 0:07:31.960 --> 0:07:33.920 If you don't do that and you look at like 0:07:34.040 --> 0:07:37.040 the actual like historical record, like the average quality of 0:07:37.120 --> 0:07:40.960 life in China like is not eclipsed by Europe until 0:07:41.000 --> 0:07:42.640 like the May eighteen hundreds. 0:07:42.920 --> 0:07:45.480 Yeah, like you know, so like this is all this 0:07:45.520 --> 0:07:46.760 is all like very even. 0:07:46.640 --> 0:07:49.760 Then, like life expects in the Midican hundreds, didn't it 0:07:49.760 --> 0:07:52.480 took decades to go up after the Industrial revolution? 0:07:52.680 --> 0:07:53.080 Right late? 0:07:53.480 --> 0:07:55.240 Yeah, Oh, this is this is sort of drawing to 0:07:55.440 --> 0:07:57.600 what they're trying to do here, is that like a 0:07:57.600 --> 0:07:59.240 lot of this is just it's directly it's just the 0:07:59.240 --> 0:08:01.760 product of colonials, right, and they sort of acknowledge that 0:08:01.800 --> 0:08:04.320 colonialism existed and that it was like extractive. But their 0:08:04.560 --> 0:08:07.240 job is to take the basic insights of history and 0:08:07.280 --> 0:08:10.200 depoliticize it. Right, We're going to get you later. One 0:08:10.200 --> 0:08:13.600 of the things they win this prize for is depoliticizing revolution, 0:08:14.800 --> 0:08:17.920 turning revolution into like a Nash E. Colibrium game theory thing. 0:08:18.280 --> 0:08:21.600 Oh god, which is unbelievable. It's incredible. 0:08:22.000 --> 0:08:24.040 Yeah, these are the kind of people who I have 0:08:24.080 --> 0:08:26.440 to deal with on a daily basis on list serves 0:08:26.720 --> 0:08:29.880 Like these are the economists emailing the entire list serve 0:08:29.920 --> 0:08:32.240 with a unique insight into something that we all you 0:08:32.320 --> 0:08:36.360 thirty year Like the old faculty email list is plagued. 0:08:35.880 --> 0:08:38.640 By this kind of individual Yeah. 0:08:38.000 --> 0:08:41.400 And like like this is a thing where so they're 0:08:41.440 --> 0:08:45.120 absolutely convinced that, like, like the one hundred percent convinced 0:08:45.160 --> 0:08:47.160 that the thing that leads to economic prosperity is like 0:08:47.200 --> 0:08:52.800 the safeguarding of individual property rights. And like I will 0:08:52.840 --> 0:08:56.160 give them a little tiny bit of credit where they're like, well, yeah, 0:08:56.160 --> 0:08:59.120 so direct colonial institutions were attractive and they're bad because 0:08:59.120 --> 0:09:02.360 they infringe on but he writes, and that's mildly better 0:09:02.400 --> 0:09:05.520 than most of these people. Yeah, but these are these 0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:09.040 are these are again, these are the most advanced busheois economists. 0:09:09.120 --> 0:09:12.880 Right, they're not. They're not like pro Rhodesia and neoclassical guys, right. 0:09:13.240 --> 0:09:13.520 They do. 0:09:13.640 --> 0:09:14.959 They do have a lie where they say, we're not 0:09:15.000 --> 0:09:16.720 going to say when the colonialism is good or bad. 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:18.560 And I think that's been misinterpreted a little bit because 0:09:18.600 --> 0:09:22.120 like in their work they're pretty clear that it's bad. 0:09:22.440 --> 0:09:25.080 They're just trying to make like a moral judgment because 0:09:25.080 --> 0:09:25.680 God forbid. 0:09:25.800 --> 0:09:28.160 Yeah, well they said they're saying it's extractive, and they 0:09:28.200 --> 0:09:30.880 think that like attractions bad because it's inefficients. Yeah, but 0:09:30.920 --> 0:09:33.600 basically things like that, they think that like Okay, so 0:09:33.640 --> 0:09:35.360 like if you if you set up like regimes that 0:09:35.400 --> 0:09:39.960 like SafeCare private property, this will like make people like richer. 0:09:40.280 --> 0:09:43.240 But I want to read a quote from from one 0:09:43.280 --> 0:09:46.560 of the papers they wrote. Quote, in comparatively poor and 0:09:46.640 --> 0:09:49.880 less tense populated regions where Europeans could easily settle, it 0:09:49.960 --> 0:09:53.840 was in the colonizer's interest to introduce inclusive economic institutions 0:09:53.840 --> 0:09:56.800 that help to boost prosperity for the majority in the 0:09:56.840 --> 0:09:57.480 long run. 0:09:58.000 --> 0:10:03.080 Now, now me like they didn't go on to say, 0:10:03.080 --> 0:10:05.839 how like yeah, but Britain built the railways in India, 0:10:05.920 --> 0:10:09.920 Like like like. 0:10:10.080 --> 0:10:12.200 This is what he says, right, because what's happening here. 0:10:12.280 --> 0:10:14.080 You know, this is something that economists love to do. 0:10:14.120 --> 0:10:16.000 It's like economists love to go into other fields and 0:10:16.000 --> 0:10:18.320 to have to colonize them, right, Yes, Like what they're 0:10:18.320 --> 0:10:20.319 doing here is there they've gone into like this field 0:10:20.320 --> 0:10:23.520 of history. Yeah, and they're attempting to sort of colonized them, right, 0:10:24.120 --> 0:10:28.040 many such cases. Yeah, and you know they're looking at 0:10:28.040 --> 0:10:30.920 this stuff, right, and you've got things like this where 0:10:30.920 --> 0:10:33.200 it's like no, like the economic institutions that were set 0:10:33.280 --> 0:10:37.520 up in like settler colonies were not designed to introduce 0:10:37.520 --> 0:10:40.600 inclusive economic institutions to like help boost prosperity for the 0:10:40.600 --> 0:10:42.000 majority of the long run, like that was. 0:10:42.000 --> 0:10:43.880 The result of social struggle. 0:10:44.800 --> 0:10:47.880 But they for some reason basically think that social struggles 0:10:47.880 --> 0:10:53.280 started in like the eighteen eighties. Oh yeah, the Nobo 0:10:53.360 --> 0:10:56.840 Bell like committee. They're like Econ fake Econdo Bell Committee 0:10:56.920 --> 0:10:59.520 like releases, like a giant statement. Like there's like press 0:10:59.520 --> 0:11:01.920 summaries have like a slightly more detail and they have 0:11:02.000 --> 0:11:04.400 like the Econi one. And I want to read this 0:11:05.120 --> 0:11:07.960 from so part of what they're doing, right, you're talking 0:11:07.960 --> 0:11:11.520 about like the work that was inspired by this, by 0:11:11.559 --> 0:11:14.800 the understanding that like the different institutions change economic outcomes. 0:11:15.000 --> 0:11:15.400 Quote. 0:11:16.480 --> 0:11:19.520 Beterg and Ivery two thousand and five examined the legacy 0:11:19.559 --> 0:11:22.480 of British land institutions in India that gave cultivators in 0:11:22.600 --> 0:11:26.160 certain regions proprietary rights, including that productivity was higher in 0:11:26.200 --> 0:11:32.520 these regions post independence. Genioli and Rainier and Micaelopolis and 0:11:33.160 --> 0:11:39.280 Papa Iyanu studied the impact of differences in political centralization 0:11:39.320 --> 0:11:43.240 along ethnic groups dream Dream pre colonial times. None documented 0:11:43.280 --> 0:11:48.080 the long run negative impacts of the slave trade. Delwy 0:11:48.160 --> 0:11:50.120 ten by my non paper in two thousand and eight, 0:11:50.200 --> 0:11:52.000 So we'll go back to that in a second. Del 0:11:52.160 --> 0:11:54.640 twenty ten investigated the long run effects of the so 0:11:54.720 --> 0:11:58.040 called meta system in operation between fifteen seventy three and 0:11:58.080 --> 0:12:01.200 eighteen twelve and Peru. Inblivian where men were forced to 0:12:01.200 --> 0:12:04.559 work in minds, within the boundaries of metsa household consumption 0:12:04.679 --> 0:12:06.800 was twenty five percent lower in twenty twenty one than 0:12:06.880 --> 0:12:11.200 just outside the boundaries. So what they have discovered here again, 0:12:11.720 --> 0:12:16.120 in the late two thousands and early twenty tenths, they 0:12:16.160 --> 0:12:20.480 discovered that slavery had more negative economic impacts are the 0:12:20.520 --> 0:12:21.840 places where there was slavery. 0:12:22.960 --> 0:12:32.440 Jesus Christ, Like, thanks for trying guys like this. 0:12:31.520 --> 0:12:34.480 And shit that they gave these people a Nobel prize 0:12:34.480 --> 0:12:41.160 for inspiring this is insane. 0:12:41.440 --> 0:12:44.160 You're right, economists, dude just love to tourist in someone 0:12:44.160 --> 0:12:48.760 else's discipline and like fucking have the most basic insight possible. 0:12:48.840 --> 0:12:50.960 Like all of these are things that would be like 0:12:51.480 --> 0:12:58.080 an interesting undergraduate paper, right, Like, yeah, insane that these 0:12:58.120 --> 0:13:01.280 people are getting Nobel prizes for this insane. It's economics 0:13:01.360 --> 0:13:03.200 that same difference, I guess. 0:13:03.400 --> 0:13:05.120 All right, So speaking of economics, we need to go 0:13:05.200 --> 0:13:08.040 to ads because so it'll be a long term detrimental 0:13:08.080 --> 0:13:08.960 consequence for us. 0:13:09.280 --> 0:13:13.680 Don't but when we come back, there's some more unreal bullshit. 0:13:23.960 --> 0:13:25.000 We are back, Okay. 0:13:25.040 --> 0:13:28.640 So speaking of undergred bullshit, well, one of the big 0:13:28.679 --> 0:13:31.320 things in their like initial paper that they did the 0:13:31.360 --> 0:13:33.440 whole oh my god, they discovered that there's difference between 0:13:33.440 --> 0:13:35.960 settler colonies and like attractive colonies. One of the big 0:13:36.040 --> 0:13:37.559 things in that paper was they spent a whole bunch 0:13:37.600 --> 0:13:40.080 of time looking into was the economic difference in these 0:13:40.080 --> 0:13:40.840 countries because. 0:13:40.679 --> 0:13:41.199 Of the climate. 0:13:43.280 --> 0:13:47.079 Which, now, for those of you who are students of history, right, 0:13:47.360 --> 0:13:50.360 the thing you will remember is that this was like 0:13:50.440 --> 0:13:54.720 the most advanced race science theory of the early eighteen hundreds. Yes, 0:13:55.120 --> 0:13:58.600 and these people are like the economists are finally getting 0:13:58.600 --> 0:13:59.640 around to busting this. 0:14:00.160 --> 0:14:02.239 Like two thousand and four. 0:14:03.200 --> 0:14:05.600 They had a looked at skull measurements because I felt like, 0:14:05.760 --> 0:14:10.840 I feel like we're heading down that pod like econophrenology. 0:14:10.480 --> 0:14:14.120 So bad, incredible. 0:14:14.200 --> 0:14:17.400 That was actually a whole thing in fascist Japan where 0:14:17.400 --> 0:14:18.800 they had all of I can't remember if I ever 0:14:18.840 --> 0:14:20.520 talked about this in the episodes that I did on 0:14:20.720 --> 0:14:23.520 Bachelor's episodes, but they had this whole thing where they 0:14:23.560 --> 0:14:27.960 had like racial categorizations and like biological characteristics of like 0:14:28.000 --> 0:14:29.960 the races, and they would use them to like determine 0:14:29.960 --> 0:14:32.400 allocated efficiency of which slaves you should use to do what. 0:14:32.800 --> 0:14:35.960 Oh cool, cool, cool, cool cool. It was great. 0:14:36.040 --> 0:14:39.440 It like great, I mean, like, holy fucking shit, it's 0:14:39.720 --> 0:14:40.600 so bad. 0:14:41.560 --> 0:14:43.840 They dis missed that time. Man, those people could kick 0:14:43.840 --> 0:14:45.720 the shit out of a Nobel Price in like twenty 0:14:45.720 --> 0:14:47.480 twenty five. They came back with that stuff. 0:14:47.640 --> 0:14:49.640 Yeah, I get, like, you know, I mean one of 0:14:49.680 --> 0:14:51.080 the things we were talking about, right, is like you 0:14:51.160 --> 0:14:52.800 were mentionings like these these are like these are like 0:14:52.840 --> 0:14:55.960 such obvious insights. And I remember, so I went to 0:14:56.080 --> 0:14:58.560 University of Chicago, right, and that means that I fucking 0:14:58.720 --> 0:15:01.960 know all of these fucking ghouls, Like I met all 0:15:02.000 --> 0:15:03.960 the people who are going to become these econ dipshits. 0:15:04.040 --> 0:15:05.800 Yeah, you have ground zero for that shit. 0:15:06.200 --> 0:15:08.720 One of the things that's funny is that like this 0:15:08.840 --> 0:15:10.760 is like a particular thing of the universe of Chicago 0:15:10.920 --> 0:15:12.680 become people's like they all think they can do math 0:15:13.280 --> 0:15:15.680 and they can't, right, they suck at it. But one 0:15:15.680 --> 0:15:16.880 of the thin things I was almost like so a 0:15:16.880 --> 0:15:19.080 bunch of my friends are math majors, and math majors 0:15:19.080 --> 0:15:21.520 can like actually do math, Like they could do the 0:15:21.600 --> 0:15:24.480 kind of math that's like there's no there aren't like 0:15:24.600 --> 0:15:28.080 numbers involved. Like it's like they're doing like field theory 0:15:28.200 --> 0:15:30.000 or some shit, or like they're doing a kind of 0:15:30.080 --> 0:15:32.000 math that when someone tries to explain it to you, 0:15:32.000 --> 0:15:34.880 they have to start like making diagrams of like the 0:15:34.880 --> 0:15:37.720 faces of cubes and then like explaining how there's like 0:15:37.760 --> 0:15:41.440 thirty two dimensional edges or whatever. And there's always this 0:15:41.840 --> 0:15:44.360 joke from the math professors where they'd be mad because 0:15:44.360 --> 0:15:45.920 like they look at the econdable price and they'd be like, 0:15:45.920 --> 0:15:49.720 this person made like an incredibly minor optimization to a 0:15:49.720 --> 0:15:52.520 trading algorithm that's like incredibly obvious to anyone who even 0:15:52.560 --> 0:15:54.160 sort of knows math, and they gave them at a mole 0:15:54.200 --> 0:15:54.640 price for this. 0:15:54.880 --> 0:15:57.600 And this is that before history. Yeah. 0:15:57.920 --> 0:16:03.200 So the other thing that they discovered, right, oh God, 0:16:03.320 --> 0:16:06.760 I I I'm trying to find the least depressing way 0:16:06.800 --> 0:16:13.120 to put this. They they discovered that there are revolutions, 0:16:14.640 --> 0:16:20.000 and they discovered that like there are different interest groups 0:16:20.040 --> 0:16:22.280 in a revolution who have different interests and like like 0:16:22.280 --> 0:16:24.080 literally One of the things that they won this prize 0:16:24.080 --> 0:16:28.240 for is a paper where they they discovered that giving 0:16:28.280 --> 0:16:31.160 people like the franchise, like giving people the ability to vote, 0:16:31.160 --> 0:16:32.960 and setting up the welfare state was something that was 0:16:32.960 --> 0:16:38.480 done by elites to stop revolutions. Yeah again, Yeah, they 0:16:38.520 --> 0:16:41.040 have all these mathematical models that look very impressive until 0:16:41.040 --> 0:16:43.600 you realize they're just they're like incredibly stupid game theory 0:16:43.640 --> 0:16:47.280 bullshit to like determine whether or not a country will 0:16:47.320 --> 0:16:50.280 do a revolution, and their model for it basically is 0:16:50.360 --> 0:16:54.760 and they've discovered some some genuinely impressive insights for like 0:16:54.760 --> 0:16:56.840 a sixteen year old who wants to go into into 0:16:56.920 --> 0:17:01.320 political science, right, Like, they discovered that, for example, elites 0:17:01.320 --> 0:17:04.679 have economic interests and that those economic interests are different 0:17:04.760 --> 0:17:08.600 from masses. But because they're economists, the only way they 0:17:08.640 --> 0:17:12.000 can conceptualize this is in terms of tax rates. So 0:17:12.320 --> 0:17:14.720 they make the argument, and this is not a joke. 0:17:15.160 --> 0:17:17.359 I am, I am being serious about this. I read 0:17:17.359 --> 0:17:21.679 this fucking footnote. They make the argument that the overthrow 0:17:21.760 --> 0:17:25.240 of Salvador Allende was about elite tax rates. 0:17:27.480 --> 0:17:32.040 Oh that one is fucking like Jesus wept. 0:17:33.480 --> 0:17:35.080 And it's so funny too, and this is this is 0:17:35.119 --> 0:17:38.000 like one of the biggest most obvious problems with their models, right, 0:17:38.000 --> 0:17:40.720 And this is this is this is from all the 0:17:40.720 --> 0:17:42.920 way back to like their whole thing about like how 0:17:42.960 --> 0:17:45.280 the institutions that were set up by colonialists being different 0:17:45.320 --> 0:17:48.560 affected like the long term trajectory of these countries. They 0:17:48.680 --> 0:17:52.440 treat these entire process because like one of the things 0:17:52.440 --> 0:17:54.879 that they've discovered is that there are revolutions and counter revolutions, 0:17:54.920 --> 0:17:58.000 because they read a Wikipedia article about like right wing 0:17:58.080 --> 0:18:00.359 coups in Latin America, and they discovered that eats can 0:18:00.359 --> 0:18:03.280 do antidemocratic coups because they don't want their taxes to 0:18:03.320 --> 0:18:03.840 be too high. 0:18:04.240 --> 0:18:05.320 That's the only reason they do it. 0:18:05.400 --> 0:18:08.119 Yeah, But but their discovery of this, right, that that 0:18:08.240 --> 0:18:12.160 right wingers do antidemocratic cups to like preserve their wealth 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:15.760 and political power. Right, But never at any point in 0:18:15.800 --> 0:18:17.800 their process does it seem to have occurred to them 0:18:18.200 --> 0:18:23.040 that elites are not purely single national figures, and that 0:18:23.119 --> 0:18:26.000 there are in fact multinational elites and in fact there's 0:18:26.000 --> 0:18:30.000 something called the Central Intelligence Agency that doesn't come FAMI. 0:18:30.359 --> 0:18:33.000 These people do curse. And this is this is like 0:18:33.160 --> 0:18:34.320 the fundamental core of this right. 0:18:34.359 --> 0:18:35.960 It's like these models talk about sort of like e 0:18:36.040 --> 0:18:39.280 lead extraction, right, but it's all framed through the language 0:18:39.320 --> 0:18:42.440 of sort of like taxes or like rents, basically like 0:18:42.440 --> 0:18:45.040 like the thinking like land ranch or like they're fighting 0:18:45.040 --> 0:18:46.960 over a surplus. Right, Okay, But what they're trying to 0:18:47.000 --> 0:18:49.879 do is depoliticize how this actually works, because the thing 0:18:49.920 --> 0:18:54.080 they're trying to present is that all extraction happens through 0:18:54.119 --> 0:18:57.320 the state, right, Yeah, Like the state is the tool 0:18:57.359 --> 0:18:59.639 that leads use. And now if you think about those 0:18:59.840 --> 0:19:02.199 five seconds, well, like well no, obviously, like there's an 0:19:02.200 --> 0:19:05.920 exploitation in like the workplace that's actually in indies, right, 0:19:06.000 --> 0:19:08.959 military hatorships, that's actually like the primary place where extraction happens. 0:19:09.160 --> 0:19:12.000 Where you shoot all the union organizers and then you 0:19:12.320 --> 0:19:14.200 fucking force solved the peasants to work in the field 0:19:14.200 --> 0:19:15.520 and shoot them if they don't. Right. 0:19:16.720 --> 0:19:18.360 But but what what they're doing is attempting to sort 0:19:18.359 --> 0:19:21.639 of deep politicize the deep plicize this entire process. This 0:19:21.680 --> 0:19:23.200 is what I'm talking about. Like they are the. 0:19:23.119 --> 0:19:27.960 Most advanced Bushwi economists, and being the most advanced Bushwise economists, 0:19:27.960 --> 0:19:31.439 they have finally figured out that the whole they call 0:19:31.480 --> 0:19:34.080 it modernization theory. That's not really what modernization theory is. 0:19:34.119 --> 0:19:36.840 But they're economists, they're fucking stupid. They don't know anything. 0:19:37.280 --> 0:19:40.119 You can't judge them for not actually knowing what modernization 0:19:40.200 --> 0:19:43.320 theory is. But they finally discovered that the old line 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:47.119 about how economic development and evidently brought democracy was wrong. 0:19:49.840 --> 0:19:51.400 Again, huge insight here. 0:19:52.280 --> 0:19:57.359 Yeah, but this brings them into the world of democratic transitions. Now, 0:19:58.119 --> 0:19:59.920 after we come back from these ad breaks, I would 0:20:00.119 --> 0:20:02.560 read you the most thunderously stupid line I've ever read 0:20:02.600 --> 0:20:04.399 in a paper in my entire life. And that is 0:20:04.400 --> 0:20:07.240 fucking saying something given how many eCOM papers I've read. Yeah, 0:20:07.280 --> 0:20:22.040 you've been in the trenches. Okay, oh god, let me 0:20:22.280 --> 0:20:24.479 let me, let me, let me read this line. This 0:20:24.560 --> 0:20:31.560