Lex Fridman Podcast
#457 – Jennifer Burns: Milton Friedman, Ayn Rand, Economics, Capitalism, Freedom
Sun, 19 Jan 2025
Jennifer Burns is a historian of ideas, focusing on the evolution of economic, political, and social ideas in the United States in the 20th century. She wrote two biographies, one on Milton Friedman, and the other on Ayn Rand. Thank you for listening ❤ Check out our sponsors: https://lexfridman.com/sponsors/ep457-sc See below for timestamps, transcript, and to give feedback, submit questions, contact Lex, etc. Transcript: https://lexfridman.com/jennifer-burns-transcript CONTACT LEX: Feedback - give feedback to Lex: https://lexfridman.com/survey AMA - submit questions, videos or call-in: https://lexfridman.com/ama Hiring - join our team: https://lexfridman.com/hiring Other - other ways to get in touch: https://lexfridman.com/contact EPISODE LINKS: Jennifer's X: https://x.com/profburns Jennifer's Website: https://www.jenniferburns.org Jennifer's Books: Milton Friedman biography: https://amzn.to/4hfy1HO Ayn Rand biography: https://amzn.to/4afr3A0 SPONSORS: To support this podcast, check out our sponsors & get discounts: Brain.fm: Music for focus. Go to https://brain.fm/lex GitHub: Developer platform and AI code editor. Go to https://gh.io/copilot LMNT: Zero-sugar electrolyte drink mix. Go to https://drinkLMNT.com/lex Shopify: Sell stuff online. Go to https://shopify.com/lex AG1: All-in-one daily nutrition drinks. Go to https://drinkag1.com/lex OUTLINE: (00:00) - Introduction (10:05) - Milton Friedman (24:58) - The Great Depression (39:15) - Schools of economic thought (50:22) - Keynesian economics (58:10) - Laissez-faire (1:06:00) - Friedrich Hayek (1:11:18) - Money and monetarism (1:26:03) - Stagflation (1:30:56) - Moral case for capitalism (1:34:53) - Freedom (1:39:51) - Ethics of competition (1:43:37) - Win-win solutions (1:45:26) - Corruption (1:47:51) - Government intervention (1:54:10) - Conservatism (2:00:33) - Donald Trump (2:03:09) - Inflation (2:07:38) - DOGE (2:12:58) - Javier Milei (2:18:03) - Richard Nixon (2:25:17) - Ronald Reagan (2:28:24) - Cryptocurrency (2:43:40) - Ayn Rand (2:51:18) - The Fountainhead (3:02:58) - Sex and power dynamics (3:19:04) - Evolution of ideas in history (3:26:32) - Postmodernism (3:37:33) - Advice to students (3:45:50) - Lex reflects on Volodymyr Zelenskyy interview PODCAST LINKS: - Podcast Website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast - Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr - Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 - RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/ - Podcast Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOdP_8GztsuKi9nrraNbKKp4 - Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/lexclips
Full Episode
The following is a conversation with Jennifer Burns, a historian of ideas, including the evolution of economic, political, and social ideas in the United States in the 20th century to today. She wrote two biographies, one on Milton Friedman and the other on Ayn Rand, both of which I highly recommend. This was a super technical and super fascinating conversation.
At the end, I make a few comments about my previous conversation with President Zelensky, for those of you who may be interested. And now, a quick few second mention of each sponsor. Check them out in the description. It's the best way to support this podcast. We got Brain.fm for focus, GitHub for programming and AI, Element for delicious electrolytes, Shopify for merch, and AG1 for health.
Choose wisely, my friends. Also, if you want to get in touch with me, go to lextreamer.com slash contact. And now, on to the full ad reads. As always, no ads in the middle. I try to make this interesting, but if you must skip them, please still check out our sponsors. If I can only speak English, I enjoy their stuff. Maybe you will too. Click the links. Buy the stuff. Glory shall be ours.
This episode is brought to you by Brain.fm, a platform that offers music specifically made for focus. I talk about listening to brown noise a lot. It's actually funny, but I don't believe Brain.fm has brown noise. But that's not what I use it for. I usually play brown noise because basically everything has brown noise. YouTube has brown noise. Spotify has brown noise.
I use that as one layer, and as the second layer, I'll use music from Brain.fm. So there's all kinds of almost like ethereal soundtracks. Maybe there's a bit of like a techno beat. I like the stuff with the beat, just very light, where the beat does not... have this kind of edge that distracts me, but there's still a rhythm to it. So I'll have that plus a bit of brown noise.
And that's like a really beautiful focus. I believe these ads are for the episode with Jennifer Burns, Milton Friedman. Did you know that he wrote Capitalism and Freedom in just six months while teaching full time? Also, did you know that Brett Naik wrote JavaScript in I think a week, maybe 10 days? Passion and focus, ladies and gentlemen, gets a lot of stuff done.
And you should try to increase yours by trying brain.fm for free for 30 days by going to brain.fm slash lex. That's brain.fm slash lex for 30 days free. This episode is also brought to you by GitHub and GitHub Copilot. the super amazing AI that helps you to program. If you don't know what GitHub Copilot is, ladies and gentlemen, you are missing out.
I'm going to be doing a lot of programming podcasts coming up. And I mean, I really just don't even program without AI anymore. It is true, it is fully an assistant at this point, but not a kind of guide. So I've not really have had success with anything agentic. Really the thing I'm interested, especially when I'm actually trying to get work done, I'm interested in maximizing my productivity.
And for that, the difficult things that an agent is supposed to be able to do, I still do faster and better, those difficult decisions. I don't like the task of fixing. decisions made by agents, but fixing code generated by Copilot, for example, that is much more pleasant, it's much more fun, it's much more efficient, especially because the mistakes are not that numerous.
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