History of Capitalism with Julia Ott and Louis Hyman

I just started producing a weekly public affairs show on WTJU called Soundboard. I’ll be posting some of the segments I produce on this blog along with thoughts that didn’t make it on air.

The first interview I recorded for Soundboard was with two historians who are looking at the particular forms that capitalism has taken throughout our history, analyzing it as a representation of particular policies and intellectual ideas rather than a timeless feature in our lives. JULIA OTT, associate professor of history at the New School, and LOUIS HYMAN, assistant professor of history at Cornell University are among those scholars showing that when it comes to our economic system, history can be instructive for giving us a sense of where we are.

They’re essentially questioning things we take for granted about the way our economy functions by showing that it’s not something that exists outside of us. It has evolved throughout history and we have shaped it. By exploring how capitalism looked at different moments, they give us the tools to reconsider how it works now. Very anthropological, if I do say so myself.