The Good Fight

Yascha Mounk and Al Roth discuss what we miss when we separate economics from human emotion.

Alvin E. Roth is the Craig and Susan McCaw Professor of Economics at Stanford University and the George Gund Professor of Economics and Business Administration Emeritus at Harvard University. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2012. His latest book is Moral Economics: From Prostitution to Organ Sales, What Controversial Transactions Reveal About How Markets Work.

In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Al Roth discuss the impact of moral disgust on solving economic problems, whether we should allow financial payments for organ donation, and what the rise of OnlyFans tells us about changing attitudes towards the self and economic transactions.

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Podcast production by Mickey Freeland and Leonora Barclay.

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Yascha Mounk and Timothy Garton Ash discuss how Britain’s shift toward populism reflects broader European trends.

Timothy Garton Ash is the author of Homelands: A Personal History of Europe and writes the newsletter History of the Present. His upcoming book, Europe in 7½ Chapters, will be published in October 2026.

In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Timothy Garton Ash discuss the crisis of Labour and rise of Reform, why Europeans are struggling to adapt to a new political, cultural, and technological age, and the future of the war in Ukraine.

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Podcast production by Jack Shields and Leonora Barclay.

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Yascha Mounk and Laurenz Guenther discuss why ordinary voters and political elites disagree on immigration, crime, and social issues.

Laurenz Guenther is a political economist at the Toulouse School of Economics and a Fellow at the Institute for European Policymaking at Bocconi University. His research and Substack focus on representation, populism, and immigration in Western democracies.

In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Laurenz Guenther discuss why there’s a massive representation gap between political elites and voters on cultural issues, how this explains the rise of populist parties like the AfD in Germany, and whether new parties can successfully occupy the economically left but socially conservative political space.

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Podcast production by Mickey Freeland and Leonora Barclay.

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Yascha Mounk and Lant Pritchett discuss why development requires building state capability, not just charitable interventions.

Lant Pritchett is a development economist from Idaho. Having now thrice retired, he is currently a Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics in the School of Public Policy and the co-founder and Research Director of Labor Mobility Partnerships (LaMP).

In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Lant Pritchett discuss why the traditional foreign aid approach to development is fundamentally misguided, how countries actually achieve prosperity through organic national transformation, and whether the classic path to development remains viable in the 21st century. 

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Podcast production by Jack Shields and Leonora Barclay.

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Yascha Mounk and David Bromwich discuss grade inflation, political conformity, and the crisis of trust in higher education.

David Bromwich has taught literature at Yale University since 1988. His books include Hazlitt: the Mind of a Critic, The Intellectual Life of Edmund Burke, How Words Make Things Happen, and Politics by Other Means: Higher Education and Group Thinking.

In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and David Bromwich discuss why Americans have lost faith in universities, how grade inflation and political conformity undermine academic credibility, and whether the opacity of elite admissions processes can be reformed.

Note: David Bromwich asked us to be clear that the views he expresses are his own and not those of any institution or group within an institution.

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Email: [email protected]

Podcast production by Mickey Freeland and Leonora Barclay.

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