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 outlines what real democratic governance would mean inside government and at work, why the concentration of wealth threatens stability, and how a long-term movement for a more representative system could finally deliver the policies most Americans want.
Browse Episodes
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Econ 101 shapes how millions of people understand the economy—but what if the textbooks are teaching a worldview that’s outdated, oversimplified, and in some cases flat-out wrong?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 project rewriting introductory economics to reflect the real world. They explain why the old curriculum failed during the 2008 financial crisis, how CORE foregrounds issues students actually care about—inequality, climate change, and the future of work—and why teaching economics without talking about innovation or power is like teaching physics without gravity. If you’ve ever walked out of an Econ 101 class thinking, “That can’t be how the economy really works,” this episode is your vindication—and your alternative.
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 how this ideology became like the air we breathe: a pervasive worldview that shapes our politics, our markets, and even the way we understand ourselves. They explore how elite power captured the machinery of government, why the market has become a runaway algorithm fueling inequality, and what it will take to break free from an ideology so deeply embedded we mistake it for common sense.