Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer
by Civic Ventures
We are living through a paradigm shift from trickle-down neoliberalism to middle-out economics — a new understanding of who gets what and why. Join zillionaire class-traitor Nick Hanauer and some of the world’s leading economic and political thinkers as they explore the latest thinking on how the economy actually works.
Episodes
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Bonus Episode: Introducing Pitchfork Politics — Who Are the New Swing Voters?
We're bringing you something new from the Pitchfork universe! Today, we're sharing the debut episode of Pitchfork Politics, a new podcast hosted by Civic Ventures President Zach Silk and Middle Out Center Executive Director Richard Trent, exploring how to run and win on the economy. In this first...
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Why Your Raise Doesn’t Feel Like a Raise (with Angela Hanks)
You got a raise. So why does it feel like you’re still struggling? New research finds that rising debt payments have swallowed more than half of real income gains for a typical one-earner household since late 2022. Angela Hanks of The Century Foundation joins Goldy and Paul to explain how debt is...
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Anti-Fascist Economics (with Isabella Weber)
What happens to democracy when people can no longer afford the basics of everyday life? Economist Isabella Weber argues that the affordability crisis isn't just an economic problem—it's a threat to democracy itself. Drawing on her new book, Anti-Fascist Economics, she joins Nick and Goldy to...
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Housing Is a Market Power Problem (with Sandeep Vaheesan & Brian Callaci)
Housing is still ridiculously expensive, and building more housing is absolutely part of the solution. But supply alone won’t fix a system where landlords have the power to jack up rents with the assistance of algorithms, and developers make more money building for the wealthiest in the market,...
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Who Is Industrial Policy Really For? (with Isabel Estevez)
Industrial policy is back at the center of the economic debate. But tariffs, factories, and reshoring are only part of the story. In this 2023 conversation, development economist Isabel Estevez joins Nick and Goldy to argue that industrial policy is ultimately about choices: what we produce, how…
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When Companies Run the Courts: How Corporate Power Becomes Legal Power (with Brendan Ballou)
We like to think that if a company cheats us, steals our wages, or breaks the law, we can take them to court. Unfortunately, there’s a good chance you’ve already signed that right away. This week, Brendan Ballou returns to the podcast to explain how forced arbitration created what he calls...
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Gouged: How Big Tech Reinvented the Rip-Off (with Lindsay Owens)
For 150 years, the price tag made a simple and universal promise: the price you saw was the price everyone saw. Now, that promise is disappearing. This week, Lindsay Owens, President and CEO of the Groundwork Collaborative returns to discuss her new book, Gouged: The End of a Fair Price — And…
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Can We Build a Common Good Economy? (with Mariana Mazzucato)
Economics teaches us to think of markets as natural forces, and government as something that should only intervene when they fail. In her new book, The Common Good Economy: How to Make Capitalism Work for Us All, economist Mariana Mazzucato argues that story is backward. She joins Nick and Goldy…
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The $29 Trillion Social Security Crisis We Already Know How to Fix ( with Rey Fuentes)
Americans are told Social Security is in trouble because there are more retirees and fewer workers to support them. But that story leaves out a major part of the problem: how much income now sits outside the system that funds Social Security. Roosevelt Institute’s Rey Fuentes joins Nick and Goldy...
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Profit, Power, and the Crisis of the Common Good (with Sen. Chris Murphy)
Why do so many Americans feel powerless, lonely, and disconnected — and what does that have to do with our economy? Senator Chris Murphy joins Nick and Goldy to discuss his new book, Crisis of the Common Good, which makes the case that America’s political crisis is inseparable from a deeper...
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Chains of Command: How Franchising Turned Control Without Responsibility Into a Business Model (with Brian Callaci)
When you walk into a McDonald’s, it looks like one company. But legally, the person making your fries probably doesn’t work for McDonald’s at all. Brian Callaci, Chief Economist at the Open Markets Institute and author of Chains of Command, joins Nick and Goldy to explain how franchising became a...
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The Joy of Money (with Carrie Joy Grimes)
Most personal finance advice starts with the same basic premise: you’re doing money wrong. But Carrie Joy Grimes, founder of WorkMoney and author of The Joy of Money, says that misses half the story. Yes, people need real tools to budget, save, pay down debt, and plan for the future. But no…
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What Happened to Liberal Democracy (with Nobel Prize-winning economist Daron Acemoglu)
Nobel Prize-winning MIT economist Daron Acemoglu joins Nick and Goldy to discuss his new book, What Happened to Liberal Democracy? Remaking a Politics of Shared Prosperity. They explore why so many people have lost faith in democracy, how inequality and weakened worker power have reshaped…
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What Happens When the Other Washington Stops Enforcing Antitrust? (with WA State Attorney General Nick Brown)
Paramount Skydance wants to merge with Warner Bros. Discovery in a $111 billion deal that would put even more of Hollywood—and two major newsrooms—under one corporate roof. Washington State Attorney General Nick Brown joins Nick and Goldy to explain why a coalition of states is suing to stop it,...
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The Good Life Economy (with Elizabeth Wilkins)
What is the economy for — GDP, corporate profits, or people? This week, Nick and Goldy talk with Elizabeth Wilkins, President and CEO of the Roosevelt Institute, about Roosevelt’s new Good Life Agenda and why so many old assumptions about markets, government, and growth are suddenly up for grabs....
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Myths That Built Trickle-Down Economics: Productivity Doesn’t Trickle Down (with Preston Mui)
Some of the world’s richest executives are selling AI as the engine of a yet-to-be realized “historic” productivity boom — while warning that it will also eliminate millions of jobs. But if workers absorb the disruption while the gains flow upward, that isn’t shared prosperity. It’s trickle-down...
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Myths That Built Trickle-Down Economics: Austerity Politics (with Clara Mattei)
This week, we’re continuing our archive miniseries, Myths That Built Trickle-Down Economics, with the myth that austerity is responsible economic policy. We’re revisiting this conversation now because the austerity playbook is still very much alive. The Trump administration and DOGE have cut...
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Myths That Built Trickle-Down Economics: Zombie Economics (with Paul Krugman)
This week, we’re continuing our archive miniseries, Myths That Built Trickle-Down Economics, with the myth that bad economic ideas die once the evidence proves them wrong. They don’t. They come back as zombie ideas: tax cuts for the rich sold as growth policy, safety-net cuts sold as...
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Myths That Built Trickle-Down Economics: Shareholder Value (with William Lazonick and Lenore Palladino)
This week, we’re continuing our archive miniseries, Myths That Built Trickle-Down Economics, with the myth that corporations exist to maximize shareholder value. For decades, Americans were sold the idea that if corporations focused on boosting stock prices and rewarding shareholders, prosperity...
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Myths That Built Trickle-Down Economics: Regulations Kill Growth (with Robert Reich)
This week, we’re kicking off our archive miniseries, Myths That Built Trickle-Down Economics, with one of the most persistent myths in American politics: that regulation kills growth. Corporate lobbyists and trickle-down evangelists have spent decades branding any rule that limits big business as…
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AI Job Loss Is Real. The Catastrophe Is Optional (with Kathryn Edwards)
AI doomsdayers want us to believe mass job loss would be unprecedented. But Kathryn Anne Edwards has a sharp reminder: In the first five weeks of the pandemic, the U.S. economy shed 22.5 million jobs—larger than any single AI job-loss estimate she has seen. The difference was policy. Unemployment...
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The Policy Choices That Suppressed American Wages (with Josh Bivens and Larry Mishel)
Why have wages for working Americans stagnated for decades—even as productivity, corporate profits, and the wealth of the people at the top continued to rise? The mainstream explanations are familiar: automation, globalization, education, or simply the unavoidable forces of the market—but wage...
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Market Humanism: A New Operating System for the Economy (with Nick Hanauer)
For the first time in Pitchfork Economics history, Nick Hanauer is on the other side of the mic. Goldy and Paul sit down with Nick to discuss Market Humanism: the emerging economic paradigm he and Eric Beinhocker believe can replace the trickle-down ideas that have shaped American policymaking…
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What Comes After Neoliberalism? (with Nick Hanauer & Eric Beinhocker)
This week, we’re sharing a special episode from Washington Monthly featuring Pitchfork Economics co-host Nick Hanauer and Oxford professor Eric Beinhocker in conversation with Anne Kim about Market Humanism. For decades, American capitalism has been organized around efficiency, shareholder value,...
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The Worker Power Missing From the Abundance Debate (with Kate Andrias and Alexander Hertel-Fernandez)
Everyone wants more housing, more clean energy, more transit, more care infrastructure, and more of the things people need to live good lives. But too much of the “abundance” debate treats workers, unions, environmental review, and community voice as obstacles to building — instead of asking who...
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How the AI Oligarchy Went Hyperscale (with Tim Murphy)
The AI “cloud” sounds weightless. But behind every chat bot, every prompt, and every promise of a coming AI revolution is a massive physical footprint: hyperscale data centers consuming enormous amounts of land, electricity, water, and public subsidies. This week, Nick and Goldy talk with Tim...
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Why Philanthropy [STILL] Isn’t the Answer with (with Anand Giridharadas)
Billionaires are shaping everything from elections to education to climate policy—and they want us to believe it's generosity. That’s why we’re re-airing this conversation with Anand Giridharadas, author of Winners Take All, on the power of elite philanthropy—and why it can’t fix the inequality…
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Crypto, Cryptocurrency Scams, and the Illusion of Easy Money (with Ben McKenzie)
Crypto is back—new hype cycles, rising prices, and fresh promises that this time cryptocurrency is changing the financial system for good. But the questions haven’t changed: is this innovation or just another wave of speculation, scams, and financial fraud? That’s why we’re revisiting this...
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From Safety Net to Power Base: Reclaiming Economic Power for Working People (with Jamie Keene)
The social safety net wasn’t supposed to work like this. Decades of neoliberal choices from politicians in both parties reshaped it—turning what was meant to support people into a system that often leaves them stuck. This week, Jamie Keene, a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute and former Biden…
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The Second Estate: Where Billionaires Don’t Pay. You Do. (with Ray D. Madoff)
Would it be a surprise if we told you the rich don’t actually live in the same tax system as everyone else? Tomorrow is Tax Day, when millions of Americans will be filing their taxes or applying for extensions, so Nick and Goldy sit down with Ray D. Madoff, Professor of Tax Law at Boston College,...
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The Wage Standard: What’s Wrong in the Labor Market and How to Fix It (with Arin Dube)
Corporate profits are booming. So why haven’t most workers gotten a raise? For decades, we’ve been told a simple story: work harder, become more productive, and your wages will follow. But what if that story was never really true? This week, Nick and Goldy talk to Arindrajit Dube—one of the most...
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The Boomcession: Booming on Paper. Brutal in Real Life. (with Matt Stoller)
What happens when the economic data says one thing, but people’s lives say another? This week, Nick and Goldy talk to Matt Stoller about what he calls a “Boomcession”—the disconnect between headline economic indicators and how the economy actually feels for most people. They go straight at the...
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The $79 Trillion Price of Inequality (with Carter Price)
Over the last 50 years, nearly $79 trillion that could have gone to the bottom 90%…didn’t. Where did it go—and what did that cost you? Nick and Goldy are joined by Carter Price, senior mathematician at the RAND Corporation, to break down how rising inequality reshaped wages, growth, and even the...
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Swiftynomics: Who’s Afraid of Women’s Economic Power? (with Misty Heggeness)
What Is Swiftynomics—and Why Does It Matter? Taylor Swift didn’t just break records—she broke the way economists think about the economy. Because if one artist can reshape entire cities overnight, what else are we missing? This week, economist Misty Heggeness uses the “Swift effect” to expose a...
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Same Cart, Different Price: When the Invisible Hand Becomes an Algorithm (with Lindsay Owens)
The price you see online might not be the real price. A new investigation found that Instacart was quietly running pricing experiments—charging different customers different prices for the same groceries at the same time. This week, Paul and Goldy talk with Groundwork Collaborative Executive...
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Should There Be a Limit to Wealth? (with Ingrid Robeyns)
Economic debates often focus on poverty — how to raise wages, strengthen safety nets, and ensure people don’t fall too far behind. But what if fairness also requires asking a different question: how much wealth is too much? This week, we’re resharing our conversation with ethics professor Ingrid...
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AI Won’t Decide the Future of Work—We Will (with David Autor)
Every wave of new technology has come with the same promise: productivity rises, and everyone benefits. That’s not how it usually plays out. This week, we’re resharing our conversation with MIT economist David Autor, one of the world’s leading experts on how technological change reshapes labor...
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LIVE FROM DC: The Magic Wand Question — Policy Pitches for Working People
If you could order a presidential administration to do one specific thing to improve the lives of working people — what would it be? At Democracy Journal’s recent conference in Washington, DC, Nick and Goldy heard some of the country’s leading economic thinkers take their best shot at that...
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LIVE FROM DC: Abundance and Social Democracy: Enemies or Allies?
Can we build an economy that delivers abundance without abandoning democratic accountability and economic equity? Recorded live at Democracy Journal’s “Can’t We All Just Get Along?” conference, this episode features a wide-ranging panel discussion on one of the most consequential debates shaping...
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A Government Built to Stall—and What That Means for Democracy (with Hannah Garden-Monheit)
If democracy is going to survive, it has to deliver.This week, Goldy and Civic Ventures president Zach Silk are joined by Hannah Garden-Monheit, a former senior official in the Biden-Harris administration, for a conversation about one of the most urgent questions in American politics: why our...
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Revisiting Reimagining Capitalism (with Rebecca Henderson)
As inequality deepens, democratic institutions strain, and climate risk accelerates, it’s becoming impossible to ignore a basic question: What is capitalism actually for? This week, we revisit our conversation with Harvard Business School professor Rebecca Henderson who argues that today’s…
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Revisiting the Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order (with Gary Gerstle)
Every era runs on an economic story. For the last half-century, ours has been neoliberalism — the belief that if you free markets from constraints, prosperity will follow. This week we revisit a bracing conversation with historian Gary Gerstle about how neoliberalism took hold, why it once felt...
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Revisiting How Neoliberalism Turned the Work Ethic Against Workers (with Elizabeth Anserson)
Americans have been told that working harder is the path to dignity, security, and success. But what if that promise was hijacked? This week, we’re revisiting our episode with Professor Elizabeth Anderson, where she exposes how neoliberalism weaponized the “work ethic” — transforming a moral...
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The Story That Built Today’s Economy (with George Monbiot and Binyamin Appelbaum)
Most people buy the fiction that markets are “natural,” inequality is inevitable, and government should step aside — but where did that idea come from? In this episode from 2019, Nick and Goldy talk with English journalist George Monbiot and American journalist and author Binyamin Appelbaum about...
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How Economists Cause Harm Even as They Aspire to Do Good (with George DeMartino)
For more than a century, economists have told us they’re simply “describing the world as it is.” But what if their theories aren’t neutral — and are quietly doing enormous harm? This week, we’re joined by economist George DeMartino, author of The Tragic Science, who makes a devastating case that...
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If America Is “Winning,” Why Does the Economy Feel Like This? (with Talmon Joseph Smith)
America has never been wealthier—so why does it feel so hard to get by? New York Times economics reporter Talmon Joseph Smith joins Nick and Goldy this week to unpack the growing gap between economic headlines and the lived reality of most Americans. With nearly $200 trillion in national wealth…
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The Right of the People: Democracy and the Case for a New American Founding (with Osita Nwanevu)
Extreme inequality and democratic decline aren’t separate crises—they’re the same crisis. This week, Osita Nwanevu joins Paul and Goldy to explain how America’s constitutional design, corporate power, and decades of upward redistribution have eroded both political and economic freedom. He…
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From Abundance to Enshittification: 2025’s Must-Read Economics Books
This week, Paul and Goldy look back at the most notable economics books of the year. They discuss Ezra Klein and David Thompson’s Abundance, Cory Doctorow’s blistering Enshittification, Thomas Piketty’s new works on inequality, Diane Coyle’s fresh take on GDP, and the overlooked history behind…
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CORE Econ: Rewriting Econ 101 for the Real World (with Suresh Naidu and Wendy Carlin)
Econ 101 shapes how millions of people understand the economy—but what if the textbooks are teaching a worldview that’s outdated, oversimplified, and in some cases flat-out wrong? This week, Nick and Goldy talk with economists Wendy Carlin and Suresh Naidu, leaders of CORE Econ, the global…
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The Quiet Coup: Neoliberalism and the Looting of America (with Mehrsa Baradaran)
Law professor Mehrsa Baradaran joins Nick and Goldy to reveal how neoliberalism wasn’t just a misguided economic theory—it was a “quiet coup” that rewired our laws, courts, and institutions to elevate capital above democracy. Drawing from her new book The Quiet Coup, Professor Baradaran explains...
About this show
We are living through a paradigm shift from trickle-down neoliberalism to middle-out economics — a new understanding of who gets what and why. Join zillionaire class-traitor Nick Hanauer and some of the world’s leading economic and political thinkers as they explore the latest thinking on how the economy actually works.
Hosted by
Civic Ventures