In dozens of provocative essays published on his Substack and cross-posted here, Brink Lindsey has explored what John Maynard Keynes called humanity’s “permanent problem:” the quest to “live wisely and agreeably and well” with the vast resources and powers that capitalist prosperity has bestowed upon us. That quest, unfortunately, has gone awry in the 21st century.
In Lindsey’s analysis, capitalism is now experiencing a “triple crisis”: a crisis of dynamism, as economic and technological progress had slowed; a crisis of inclusion, as a deep new class divide has opened up along educational lines; and a crisis of politics, our best hope for addressing the other two crises, as the values, norms, and institutions of liberal democracy are now embattled around the world.
Beginning in January 2024, Lindsey started the Permanent Problem podcast to supplement his ongoing essay series. The podcast focuses on capitalism’s triple crisis – and especially on the prospects for defusing the crisis and revitalizing social progress.
Brink Lindsey, the podcast host, is a senior vice president at the Niskanen Center. You can access his essays on “The Permanent Problem” on his Substack and here.
You can find all episodes of the podcast on his Substack, here, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
All content for The Permanent Problem is the property of Brink Lindsey and is served directly from their servers
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In dozens of provocative essays published on his Substack and cross-posted here, Brink Lindsey has explored what John Maynard Keynes called humanity’s “permanent problem:” the quest to “live wisely and agreeably and well” with the vast resources and powers that capitalist prosperity has bestowed upon us. That quest, unfortunately, has gone awry in the 21st century.
In Lindsey’s analysis, capitalism is now experiencing a “triple crisis”: a crisis of dynamism, as economic and technological progress had slowed; a crisis of inclusion, as a deep new class divide has opened up along educational lines; and a crisis of politics, our best hope for addressing the other two crises, as the values, norms, and institutions of liberal democracy are now embattled around the world.
Beginning in January 2024, Lindsey started the Permanent Problem podcast to supplement his ongoing essay series. The podcast focuses on capitalism’s triple crisis – and especially on the prospects for defusing the crisis and revitalizing social progress.
Brink Lindsey, the podcast host, is a senior vice president at the Niskanen Center. You can access his essays on “The Permanent Problem” on his Substack and here.
You can find all episodes of the podcast on his Substack, here, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
On this episode of The Permanent Problem podcast, Rauch joins host Brink Lindsey to discuss secularization and the rapid decline of organized Christianity in recent decades.
On this episode of The Permanent Problem podcast, host Brink Lindsey sits down with al-Gharbi to discuss his new book, reviewing the rise of "symbolic capitalists" to economic and cultural dominance and analyzing the dynamics that have led to the poisonous politics of the present day.
On this episode of The Permanent Problem podcast, Brink Lindsey interviews a leading analyst and advocate of abundance: Eli Dourado, chief economist at the new Abundance Institute and an expert on policy barriers to the emergence of new technologies.
Over the past half-century, societies around the world have made great strides in elevating the status of women and expanding their educational and employment opportunities. Much work remains to be done, but now an unexpected complication confronts us on the path toward greater gender equality: at the same time that girls and women have been advancing and making progress, men and boys -- especially those outside the socioeconomic elite -- have started to fall behind. In the U.S., the gender gap in college degrees is wider today than in 1972 when Title IX was passed to promote gender equality on campus -- except now the gap favors women. Men without college degrees have seen slower-rising incomes than any other group, and more and more are dropping out of the work force altogether. Meanwhile, family formation and childbearing are down, in part due to the dwindling supply of "marriageable" men.
On this episode of The Permanent Problem podcast, Richard Reeves, author of the widely discussed new book Of Boys and Men, joins Brink Lindsey to discuss the contemporary struggles of boys and men and place them in wider context. As Reeves notes, social progress always creates new and unanticipated problems, and facing them constructively is the great ongoing challenge and privilege of life in a free society.
Author Virginia Postrel (The Future and Its Enemies, The Fabric of Civilization, and more) joins the Niskanen Center's Brink Lindsey to discuss varying visions for the future on this episode of The Permanent Problem podcast.
"We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters." Peter Thiel's famous complaint hearkens back to the middle of the 20th century, when high economic growth seemed unstoppable and the future was filled with visions of moon bases, nuclear energy too cheap to meter, and yes flying cars. But in the 1970s, economic growth slowed down and the future suddenly darkened, now menaced by threats of overpopulation and runaway pollution. Except for a few brief years during the internet boom of the 1990s, the old dynamism and optimism have never returned.
In his new book The Conservative Futurist, American Enterprise Institute scholar James Pethokoukis investigates what he calls the "Great Downshift" of the past half-century - and surveys the hopeful evidence that a new burst of technological and economic innovation may be in the offing. Pethokoukis joins Brink Lindsey to discuss the book, review what's gone wrong in both public policy and the broader culture, and explore (in the words of the book's subtitle) "how to create the sci-fi world we were promised."
Is the "great stagnation" in innovation and economic growth really over? What new technologies on the horizon are most likely to reviving broader dynamism? Does the global spread of low fertility mean that our escape from stagnation is only temporary?
On this initial episode of the Permanent Problem podcast, economist and polymath Tyler Cowen joins the Niskanen Center's Brink Lindsey for a wide-ranging discussion that traces Cowen's intellectual development, assesses the prospects for a revival of capitalist dynamism and the obstacles that might short-circuit it, and delves into the growing gap between material prosperity and human flourishing.
In dozens of provocative essays published on his Substack and cross-posted here, Brink Lindsey has explored what John Maynard Keynes called humanity’s “permanent problem:” the quest to “live wisely and agreeably and well” with the vast resources and powers that capitalist prosperity has bestowed upon us. That quest, unfortunately, has gone awry in the 21st century.
In Lindsey’s analysis, capitalism is now experiencing a “triple crisis”: a crisis of dynamism, as economic and technological progress had slowed; a crisis of inclusion, as a deep new class divide has opened up along educational lines; and a crisis of politics, our best hope for addressing the other two crises, as the values, norms, and institutions of liberal democracy are now embattled around the world.
Beginning in January 2024, Lindsey started the Permanent Problem podcast to supplement his ongoing essay series. The podcast focuses on capitalism’s triple crisis – and especially on the prospects for defusing the crisis and revitalizing social progress.
Brink Lindsey, the podcast host, is a senior vice president at the Niskanen Center. You can access his essays on “The Permanent Problem” on his Substack and here.
You can find all episodes of the podcast on his Substack, here, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
