On this episode Mark talks with Dr. Fiona Hill about her new book There Is Nothing for You Here: Finding Opportunity in the Twenty-First Century. A foreign policy expert and key witness in President Trump’s first impeachment trial, she reflects on growing up in the deindustrializing North of England in the 1980s and how that upbringing attuned her to developments in both Russia and America that we are coping with today. 

Learn more about and purchase There Is Nothing for You Here: Finding Opportunity in the Twenty-First Century: [https://www.amazon.com/There-Nothing-You-Here-Twenty-First/dp/0358574315/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1646666290&sr=8-1]

Watch Fiona Hill’s full talk at the Rhodes Center on YouTube: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_n2Z3oLobE] 

Transcript coming soon.

Fiona Hill on Deindustrialization, Despair and Demagoguery

There’s a standard story economists and historians use to explain the global economy over the last 100 years: there was the gold standard, which gave way to the Bretton Woods system, which gave way to “neoliberal globalization”. 

But on this episode of the Rhodes Center Podcast, Mark talks with someone whose work challenges this story by attacking its foundational myth with deep archival work. 

James Ashely Morrison is an associate professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and author of the new book England’s Cross of Gold: Keynes, Churchill, and the Governance of Economic Beliefs. 

In it, he recounts the fight over Britain’s return to the Gold Standard after World War I, and comes to a bold conclusion: there never really was a “gold standard” – at least, not as we understand it. As James makes vividly clear, the “gold standard” was always more of an idea about a perfect state of the world, rather than an economic reality. As such, fights over it have always been less about actual monetary policy, and more about how people believe the economy is supposed to work. 

James’ work not only adds depth and nuance to this misunderstood turning point in 20th century economics. As he and Mark discuss, it also forces us to reconsider so many of the more contemporary stories we’ve been told about how our economy works, and why. 

Learn more about James’ book England’s 'Cross of Gold: Keynes, Churchill, and the Governance of Economic Beliefs' here: [https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501758423/englands-cross-of-gold/#bookTabs=1]

Watch the talk James’ gave at the Rhodes Center this Spring here: [https://watson.brown.edu/rhodes/events/2022/james-ashley-morrison-englands-cross-gold-keynes-churchill-and-governance-economic]

Keynes, Churchill, Gold Standards, and the Origins of International Money

On this episode Mark talks with Oded Galor, Professor of Economics at Brown University, and author of the new book The Journey of Humanity: The Origins of Wealth and Inequality. 

In this book Oded survey’s 200,000 years of human history to create a theory for why societies and economies grew so slowly for so long – and why, starting about 200 years ago, that began to change very rapidly. 

It’s a sweeping history that puts the work of many influential economists into a new light – from Adam Smith to Karl Marx to Paul Romer. But Oded’s story is about much more than economics. It’s about technology, geography, psychology, and politics. In short, it’s about the nature of humanity. 

Mark and Oded discuss all of this, as well as how – as we stumble through a global pandemic and catastrophic climate change – we can grow in ways that benefit us all.

Learn more about and purchase Oded’s book The Journey of Humanity here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/679024/the-journey-of-humanity-by-oded-galor/

Learn more about the Watson Institute’s other podcasts here: https://watson.brown.edu/news/podcasts

How Did We End Up with the Idea of a Growing Economy? ‘The Journey of Humanity’ with Oded Galor

This episode is a little different than the type of conversation you normally have on the show. 

Last year, Mark spoke with Oded Galor about his book The Journey of Humanity, a long-run take on why humanity changed so little for so long, and then all of sudden changed tremendously, mostly for the better. 

It’s a fascinating idea, but of course nobody actually experiences that long-run journey, or compares their daily life to distant ancestors. People typically think on the much shorter timescale of a lifetime, maybe a generation or two. 

At that scale, for many people in America today, it can seem like much of life has gotten worse, and are continuing to do so. 

Put another way: it looks like the American Dream is dead.

But is that true? What does it mean for a dream to die, anyway? And if it is dead, is there a way to revive it? 

These sound like questions for a philosopher. 

Someone who has thought about this a great deal is Josh Preiss. He’s a philosopher, Professor at Minnesota State University, and author of Just Work For All: The American Dream in the 21st Century. 

On this episode, Mark talks with Josh about the ideas behind what we call ‘The American Dream,’ and looks at the reality behind its decline: what’s gotten worse for who, and what’s needed to make things better. 

Find more information about all our episodes, including transcripts, on our website [https://rhodes-center-podcast.captivate.fm/]

Learn more about and purchase Josh Preiss’s book: [https://www.amazon.com/Just-Work-All-American-Century/dp/0367694883]

Watch Josh’s talk at the Rhodes Center: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXt1NyHscCg]

This Week in ‘Ask a Philosopher’: Is the ‘American Dream' Dead?

In the last few years, globalization has gotten an increasingly a bad rap. Whether because of increasing geopolitical tensions over high end computers chips, or the realization that when you outsource your manufacturing base it’s quite hard to make things in a hurry (see: the pandemic), people across the political spectrum are calling time on ‘make it there, ship it here.’ 

It seems that politicians of all stripes want to roll back global supply chains and ‘friendshore’ all our wants and needs. The problem with doing so however lies at the level of the firm, as has recently been pointed out by Jonas Nahm. And for a number of reasons, it won’t be an easy transition. 

Jonas is an Assistant Professor of Energy, Resources, and Environment at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and author of the recent and excellent book Collaborative Advantage: Forging Green Industries in the New Global Economy. 

On this episode, Mark talks with Jonas about all the ways that private firms, domestic institutions, and national industrial policies mesh together to produce outcomes that are more than the sum of their parts. 

Watch Jonas’s presentation at the Rhodes Center: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86cWlDVOO90]

Learn more about and purchase Collaborative Advantage: Forging Green Industries in the New Global Economy: [amazon.com/Collaborative-Advantage-Forging-Industries-Economy/dp/0197555373]

Learn more about the Watson Institute’s other podcasts: [https://watson.brown.edu/news/podcasts]

Transcript coming soon on our website.

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