Book · recommended on 1 episode
The Rise and Decline of Nations
Mancur Olson ISBN 9780300157673
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Mancur Olson ISBN 9780300157673
Find it on AmazonAffiliate link — we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
This book by Mancur Olson came up once on Lex Fridman in the episodes we index. That mention was a genuine on-air recommendation, not just a passing reference. The people who brought it up: Ezra Klein. Every occurrence below links to the episode page and to the exact second it was said on YouTube.
Explores the relation between economic development and collective action, hypothesizing that small collectives are dynamic and flexible enough to quickly react to changes, encouraging economic development, while large collectives are slow and inflexible when faced with change, leading to economic decline.
“it's by Manser Olsen, who's sort of a founder of public interest economics, and it's called The Rise and Decline of Nations. Libertarians love this book. Um and I love this book.”— Ezra Klein
The guest here is Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson: Ezra Klein is a New York Times columnist, host of the Ezra Klein Show, and author of Why We're Polarized. Derek Thompson is a writer at The Atlantic and host of the Plain English podcast; together they wrote the book Abundance. Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson make the case for 'Abundance' liberalism, dissecting Democratic dysfunction, Trump's power grabs, Elon, and DOGE.
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