EPISODE · Jun 25, 2021 · 50 MIN
#246 - PhD in Freakonomics
from Michael and Us · host Luke Savage and Will Sloan
We're still not entirely sure what the mega-bestselling 2005 book "Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything" was about, but it seems to have had something to do with arguing that economics is all about incentives. The 2010 anthology film adaptation FREAKONOMICS explores this thin thesis across segments directed by such documentary legends as Eugene Jarecki, Alex Gibney, and (ugh) Morgan Spurlock... but its "counterintuitive" take on capitalism ends up reinforcing some ugly ideas. PLUS: the wacky institution that is the Canadian Senate, and the long right-wing preoccupation with postmodernism. "How postmodernism became the universal scapegoat of the era" by Richard Seymour - https://www.newstatesman.com/international/2021/06/how-postmodernism-became-universal-scapegoat-era
What this episode covers
We're still not entirely sure what the mega-bestselling 2005 book "Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything" was about, but it seems to have had something to do with arguing that economics is all about incentives. The 2010 anthology film adaptation FREAKONOMICS explores this thin thesis across segments directed by such documentary legends as Eugene Jarecki, Alex Gibney, and (ugh) Morgan Spurlock... but its "counterintuitive" take on capitalism ends up reinforcing some ugly ideas. PLUS: the wacky institution that is the Canadian Senate, and the long right-wing preoccupation with postmodernism. "How postmodernism became the universal scapegoat of the era" by Richard Seymour - https://www.newstatesman.com/international/2021/06/how-postmodernism-became-universal-scapegoat-era
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#246 - PhD in Freakonomics
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