Frames of Space

Sam Kahn is a senior editor at Persuasion and the writer behind the Substack "Castalia." In this episode, I got a chance to speak with him about how Substack changed his life, his current approach to politics, and the tension between the writing he enjoys and the writing that gets the most clicks. Show Notes "The Things Not Named — With Sam Kahn" from The Things Not Named

To what extent has income inequality worsened over the past few years and decades? Have the rich been getting richer and the poor poorer? Has capitalism led to a rise in worker exploitation? Is neoliberalism responsible for the rise in democratic backsliding throughout the world? Tibor Rutar is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Maribor and the writer behind the Substack "Political Economy, Stats, and Society." And his biography makes this conversation immediately more interesting: he used to be a serious Marxist. In the aftermath of the Great Recession, the appeal of big structural explanations gave him the sense that Marxism could diagnose what was wrong with capitalism and propose something better. And then, over time, he started changing his mind. In this episode, I got a chance to speak with him about why he shifted away from Marxism, the difference between neoliberal capitalism and social democratic capitalism, and the effect that globalism has had on working-class Americans. Show Notes "The China Syndrome: Local Labor Market Effects of Import Competition in the United States" from the American Economic Review "27. Tibor Rutar - Capitalism for Realists" from Ideas Having Sex "The quiet vindication of Fukuyama" by Tibor Rutar, Political Economy, Stats, and Society  

Lyman Stone is a Substack writer and a Senior Fellow and Director of the Pronatalism Initiative at the Institute for Family Studies. He is a pronatalist, which means that he wants society to have higher birth rates and more children. In this episode, I got a chance to speak with him about the nature of his online persona, the gap between desired and actual fertility rates, and the correlation between marriage and fertility. Show Notes "Babies Matter So It's Pronatalism Or Bust" by Lyman Stone

Announcement: this podcast will be returning to its traditional biweekly upload schedule for the foreseeable future. But I really enjoyed the run of weekly episodes that I've been able to pull off for the past few months, and I hope to do it again some time :) Damon Linker is a senior lecturer of political science at the University of Pennsylvania and the writer behind the Substack "Notes from the Middleground," which covers the nature of MAGA politics and where it came from. As someone who was far more restrained in his critiques of Trump during Trump's first term, I've found it notable to see how much more concerned he's become about Trump since his second inauguration. In this episode, I got a chance to speak with him about how the resistance against Trump has been more restrained this time around, why ICE agents are disproportionately located in blue cities, and whether the Trump administration will be able to interfere in the upcoming midterm elections. Show Notes "The Other Rally at the Garden" by Damon Linker, Notes from the Middleground "The Politics of Anger in Minneapolis" by Damon Linker, Notes from the Middleground

Victor Kumar is an associate professor of philosophy at Boston University and the writer behind the Substack "Open Questions." He is known for his writing on political polarization, and the cultural reasons behind the state of civil culture in America. In this episode, I got a chance to speak with him about why he believes in the importance of a large Overton window, the positions he held about lockdowns during the pandemic, and whether or not universities should engage in affirmative action on behalf of conservatives. Show Notes "We Need to Talk" by Victor Kumar, Open Questions "The Fragmentation of America" by Victor Kumar, Open Questions

Elena Bridgers is the writer behind the Substack "Motherhood Until Yesterday." She is known for her writing on evolutionary biology: specifically, the nature of hunter-gatherer societies, and how that explains why motherhood is so difficult in the present. In the episode, I got a chance to speak with her about the tradeoffs that come with gender equity, how parenting has changed her conception of contemporary feminism, and the ways in which hunter-gatherer societies were neither patriarchal nor matriarchal. Show Notes "Regan Arntz-Gray on the Different Interpretations of Feminism" from Frames of Space "But WHY Do We Want Gender Equality?" by Elena Bridgers, Motherhood Until Yesterday "Of course motherhood drives the gender wage gap" by Ruxandra Teslo, Ruxandra's Substack "Three years ago, I bought an obscure academic book that changed my life" by Elena Bridgers, Motherhood Until Yesterday Father Time: A Natural History of Men and Babies by Sarah Blafer Hrdy

Lars Doucet is the President of the Center for Land Economics and the writer behind the Substack "Progress and Poverty." Lars is a Georgist, which means he believes that land is fundamentally different from other forms of property. From his point of view, we shouldn't be taxing what people build, earn, or produce—we should be taxing the value of the location itself. In this episode, I got a chance to speak with him about the concept of a land value tax (LVT): why it reduces rent costs, how it can increase government revenue without decreasing productivity, and the extent to which an LVT is compatible with the YIMBY movement. Show Notes civicmapper.org "The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom" by Jonathan Haidt "The Land Trap: A New History of the World's Oldest Asset" by Mike Bird

Blaise Brosnan is a good friend of mine, and I've had many conversations with him over the years about the divisions within the MAGA movement. He currently studies as a PhD candidate at UCLA, and I brought him onto my podcast to better understand the civil war that's happening within the Republican Party right now. So in this episode, we spoke quite a bit about the recent interview between Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes, the misconceptions that Democrats have about right-wingers, and the degree to which anti-Semitism is tolerated in Republican Party politics. Show Notes "Liberals Read, Conservatives Watch TV" by Richard Hanania "The New GOP Survey Analysis of Americans Overall, Today’s Republican Coalition, and the Minorities of MAGA" from The Manhattan Institute "Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes and the Right’s ‘Groyper’ Problem" from The Ezra Klein Show "Populism fast and slow" by Joseph Heath, In Due Course This episode will continue publishing episodes weekly until the end of the month, after which time it will return to its traditional biweekly uploading schedule.

Announcement: this podcast will be going on holiday for the rest of December, so this is the last new episode you'll be seeing on this feed in 2025. But I'll be back to regularly scheduled episodes beginning on January 1st of the new year :) Rana Mitter is the ST Lee Chair in US-Asia Relations at the Harvard Kennedy School, and an expert on understanding the nature of Chinese politics: government, culture, values, and much more. In this episode, I got a chance to speak with him about how China's Zero COVID policies increased resentment towards the Chinese government, the nature of China's investments in renewable energy, and whether the Chinese economy is poised to overtake the American economy within the next few decades. Show Notes "American Energy Policy Cannot Afford to Be This Dumb" by Derek Thompson "America: the failed state" by Francis Fukuyama, Prospect Magazine "Modern China: A Very Short Introduction" by Rana Mitter

Joseph Heath is a political philosophy professor at the University of Toronto and the writer behind the Substack "In Due Course." He is known for his commentary on critical theory, the nature of capitalism, and how our psychological tendencies influence our political beliefs. In this episode, I got a chance to speak with him about the differences between intuitive thinking and analytical reasoning, why common sense is sometimes wrong, and what all of that has to do with the rise of populism. Show Notes "Populism fast and slow" by Joseph Heath, In Due Course "Why populism became popular" by Tim Harford, The Financial Times Enlightenment 2.0 by Joseph Heath Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss and Tahl Raz