Ep. 101: Bryan Caplan: Pro Market & Pro Business, the Real Ethics of Entrepreneurship

Bryan Caplan is a professor of economics at George Mason University and the author of several books, including Open Borders - The Science and Ethics of Immigration, The Case Against Education and the Myth of the Rational Voter. Niklas sits down with Bryan to talk about his new books and why markets often work better than we give them credit for. They dig into how governments block progress in the name of safety, why antitrust usually backfires, and how “free” public services wipe out space for affordable alternatives. Bryan makes a compelling new case for free markets - even free market advocates have often been overly critical of business, and he comes up with a novel concept: there are things that sound good and bad, and things that are good and bad. Politics is promoting things that sound good but are bad - markets are promoting things that sound bad but are good. They also cover: The Microsoft antitrust case and its real cost Why poor countries suffer from too little big business Entrepreneurship as real-world experimentation A conversation for anyone building around regulation or trying to understand how progress really happens.