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Freakonomics Radio · November 7, 2024 · 48m
A Thousand-Year Conversation with Nobel Laureate Joel Mokyr
Economic historian Joel Mokyr discusses how innovation drove long-run economic growth, why the Industrial Revolution happened in Europe, and what the history of technological change tells us about AI's likely economic impact.
This summary was generated from show notes and public descriptions, not from a full transcript review. Details may contain inaccuracies.
Canon
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Mokyr argues that the Industrial Revolution occurred in Europe because European political fragmentation created competition between states for talent, making it impossible to suppress heretical ideas the way centralized empires (China, Ottoman) could.
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Mokyr traces innovation history through the biographies of scientists who challenged conventional wisdom: Galileo, Darwin, Pasteur, Einstein. Each faced institutional resistance and required courage to persist.
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