Capitalism in America

I think today it's hard for people to appreciate just how different the conversation was before the AI boom happened in 2022.

Very notable intellectuals like Alan Greenspan, who is perhaps the most consequential economist of his generation, wrote a book called Capitalism in America, in which he predicted that the creative destruction that set the US apart from Asian and European competitors, that's becoming less of a feature in its economy, and it's becoming to look more like countries on the old continent.

And so in that timeframe, there was just a lot of predictions about American decline.

At the same time, you saw China rising.

Mm

... called Capitalism in America, in which they concluded on a very pessimistic note, saying that, you know, the economic dynamism that separated the US from other European and Asian economies is on its way down, and the US is now indistinguishable from its European partners.

And so I read all of that, and I read things like, you know, in 2017, for the first time, there were more unicorns, companies worth over a billion dollars, founded outside the US than in the US.

Mm.

He was educated at Balliol College and All Souls College, Oxford, where he earned a doctorate of philosophy and history.

He is the author of 12 books, and most recently, Capitalism in America, co-written with former Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan.

and The Aristocracy of Talent, How Meritocracy Made the Modern World.

Adrian, I told you before this started for recording that I love this book, but I just got to know, what made you kind of go at this? Because again, you're going at many veins, touching many cultural things that some might consider, depending on your views, untouchable.