It’s our 100th episode! To celebrate, we pulled together some of our favorite answers to the question we love to ask our guests: Why do you do this work? Plus, Nick answers the question too. We’re thankful this week for the thoughts shared by these inspiring people, and for YOU — thanks for listening to the show. We’re excited for the next 100.
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Goldy:
To celebrate our 100th episode, we are putting compilation of the best of, why do you do this work answers.
Nick:
It’ll be fascinating to rehear those. Obviously, we asked those questions, but a compilation would be really interesting. It’ll be cool to hear them back to back. And I should also say, wow, thank you so much to everyone who listens and for having stuck with us for a hundred episodes, or clearly some of you have not been with us for a hundred episodes. You should go back to the beginning and listen to them.
Goldy:
Yeah.
Nick:
But anyway, it’s been a fun ride and hopefully we’ll do another 100 episodes.
Goldy:
And while you’re there, you can leave us a review and a five-star rating because that’s how-
Nick:
Well there you go.
Goldy:
… we get more listeners and we’ll have another 100 episodes. So Nick, you’re a really rich guy, who likes to have fun. I got to ask you about this podcast. Why do you do this work?
Nick:
That’s a good question. I don’t do it for the money. That’s for sure. As you know, Goldy, I just think it’s so important to get the word out about what’s really going on in the economy. Economists love to believe that mostly economics is like a science and I just completely disagree. Mostly economics is a story about who gets what and why. And I think it’s really, really… I think a lot of the social pathologies we face today are a consequence of a set of really terrible stories that economists told and the people who benefited from those stories retold. And if we don’t tell a new story, we’re not going to have a better economy. So I think that there’s a really important role for people who are both sort of in and outside the economics profession, to push back on those bad stories and to point towards new ones that are better.
And I think we can do that. And also I’m just continually mesmerized by the answers I get about what’s wrong with the world, from people who are my peers. It is so striking to me that a group of people who have so benefited from a particular set of economic and political arrangements, and who sit at the very top of this giant sort of social and economic pyramid. When they look around at the challenges the world face, almost never include themselves as part of the problem. It’s just absolutely shocking that you could benefit so much from a set of arrangements and never think to yourself once, maybe it’s possible the reason things are screwed up is because of the arrangements that benefit me so much. And I just think that, that lack of self-awareness or just sort of psychological ability to see yourself in some of the problems that surround you and the world, I’m just always shocked by it. And I think that the podcast is a really great way to push back on that lack of self-awareness that I see. It’s so prevalent in my social circle and in my world.
Ro Khanna:
I’m Ro Khanna. I represent a district in Silicon Valley in the United States Congress, and I’m a Vice Chair of the Progressive Caucus in Congress.
Nick:
Why do you do this work?
Ro Khanna:
Well for two reasons, in the son of immigrants, my parents came from India. My father was a chemical engineer. My mom was a substitute school teacher. I went to public school. Took out loans to get to go to some of the great universities. And I now represent arguably one of the most economically successful places in the world. I believe it’s an extraordinary country. I believe it’s a kind country, a decent country. I grew up in a place that was 99% white. I was one of the only Indian kids going to school in a class of 800. And so, I finally believe in the decency of this country.
But I think that the country is being ripped apart by people who aren’t talking about the real issues, which is that we’re going through a technology revolution and that they’re people left behind. And I fundamentally have a hope that if we can extend economic opportunity to people left out, then we will appeal to the better angels of this country again, and the type of country that I grew up in, which was very inclusive and wanted people to achieve their dreams. And then on a very personal level, my grandfather spent four years in jail with Gandhi in the 1940s-
Nick:
Really?
Ro Khanna:
… in his independence. So-
Nick:
No kidding.
Ro Khanna:
… I’ve been a very, very passionate about human rights from a very young age.
Cate Blackford:
My name is Cate Blackford and I am the Director of outreach for the Bell Policy Center.
Stephanie:
One thing that we ask all of our guests is why do you do this work? What drives you?
Cate Blackford:
Do you know the Paul Wellstone quote, “We all do better, when we all do better.” So right now our economy feels rigged and how hard it is to lead even a middle-class life is so real. But I don’t believe it has to be that way and I want to be part of that change.
Darren Walker:
I’m Darren Walker, President of the Ford Foundation.
Stephanie:
Tell us a little bit about your personal story and how that relates to why you do this work now.
Darren Walker:
Well, my story is a story of certainly overcoming difficulty, a challenge of poverty and race, growing up in small Texas town, being born in a very poor community in rural Louisiana. There is no doubt that I experienced hardship, but what I will also say is that I experienced enormous generosity, and I lived at a time when little boys like me felt that our country was cheering us on. That time in America, when the country clearly declare that it was committed to ending poverty, to addressing some of these root causes, to making it possible for kids like me to believe. And I always knew that my country was cheering me on.
And today I wonder if poor boys and girls in rural towns like Ames, Texas, or in housing projects in East New York, believe that their country is cheering them on. I had private philanthropy. I had Pell Grants. I had all sorts of public goods, public education, good public library. That was all made possible for me. And I just, today am concerned that we don’t seem to be giving that message to young people who are increasingly marginalized, and incarcerated, and ensnared in system and structures that doom them to failure.
Nancy MacLean:
I’m Nancy MacLean. I teach history and public policy at Duke University, and I am the author most recently of Democracy in Chains, the Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America.
Goldy:
So we have one final question for you.
Nancy MacLean:
Okay.
Goldy:
Why do you do the work you do?
Nancy MacLean:
I love that. I guess my flip the answer is because I can’t imagine doing anything else. You know just being who I am and knowing what I know, and feeling as strongly as I do about these things. But I will also say, and this might be for listeners who have not gotten involved in things yet, but who are disturbed by what they see happening in the country and the world. People forget to mention this often, I think, but being civically active is incredibly rewarding. You meet other people who share your values, who share your commitments. There’s a kind of esprit de corps to it, a fun, a comradery, and it is the best antidepressants-
Goldy:
Yeah.
Nancy MacLean:
… that doesn’t come over the counter in a jar, to be with people who are good people, who are trying to make the world better and again, who share some of your ideas and values. But they always stretch you and challenge you and there’s a lot of joy actually, along the way in that comradery. So, I’d say that’s what keeps me going.
Cesar Hidalgo:
My name is Cesar Hidalgo. I’m a founder of Data Wheel and I’m also a professor at the University of Toulouse, Manchester and Harvard. Why do I do this work? To be honest, because it helps me learn. The only way to learn is to jump into the deep end of the pool and starts swinging your arms or legs and see if you float.
Mehrsa Baradaran:
I am Mehrsa Baradaran. I work at UC Irvine School of Law. I do this work because I think the stories and the myths that we tell about the economy, about simple things like banks, credit, the bootstrap-ism end up affecting people’s lives. I think there’s a lot of shame and just emotions wrapped up in money and class. And I’ve lived poor, I’ve lived middle-class and I know that when you’re poor, you don’t want to talk about this stuff. I am taking the privilege that I have now is no longer a poor person to try to de-mystify and to take the shame out of some of these effects. Because I think most poor people are actually making the best decisions that they can, and I think the wealthy don’t understand that.
Anu Partanen:
So my name is Anu Partanen. I’m a writer and I’m the author of the Nordic Theory of Everything: In Search of a Better Life.
Trevor Corson:
And I’m Trevor Corson and I’m married to Anu Partanen, the most important thing you need to know about me and I am also an author. I have most recently been teaching American studies and writing at Columbia University in New York City where we lived for 10 years before we moved to Finland.
Goldy:
Why do you do the work you do?
Anu Partanen:
Well, I feel like as a writer, I want to try to find something that I can give to the world that I can provide. And for me right now, over the past several years, the fact that I had lived in the United States for 10 years, I’m now also American citizen and that I come from a Nordic country, something unique that I have. So, that’s why I had chosen to put my efforts into writing and discussing and thinking about those differences.
Trevor Corson:
I guess I feel as an American, as someone who grew up in the US and has family and friends there, I’m just really worried about where we are headed. I think we are possibly headed for very bad civil strife, possibly. And what frustrates me about the conversation and a lot of the people I’m in touch with back in the US, is how it’s so hard for us in the US to conceive of this kind of very sensible middle ground that we’re living as a reality here in Finland. Whereas in the US, we’re stuck with these narratives about freedom or communism basically. And the reality is everybody’s thinks that the mainstream in the US has to be centrist and is centrist, and that’s the only really buy-able area. And having known Anu and I feel like I need to read her book at least once a year to keep reminding myself of all the amazing insights in it about the US.
But the idea that we’re centrist is nuts. We’re far to the right. We’ve all become completely convinced that anything that’s good for anybody and that can help save our capitalist system in the United States is some form of communism or something is just ludicrous. And I feel so frustrated that I want to help try to do what little I can from our perch here in Finland right now to say, “Hey, everybody wake up.” Our American US system is really in danger and we need new stories about how to understand who we are.
Abigail Disney:
Hi, I’m Abigail Disney. I’m a filmmaker, an activist, and a philanthropist.
Nick:
You know we have a question that we always ask every guest at the end of these interviews, and we’re curious, why do you do this work?
Abigail Disney:
You know from the time I was very small, none of this fit naturally with me in my heart. I always felt like I had to offer what I had to everyone around me. It’s just like a compulsion almost. And so I can’t even imagine doing anything else. It’s just what I have to do.
Steve Keen:
Well, I’m Professor Steve Keen. I’ve been a critic of mainstream economics my entire academic and pre-academic career. Wrote the book called Debunking Economics, and what I’ve been trying to do is build a realistic economics, not caught up with what I call the neoclassical disease.
Goldy:
Another question we ask of all our guests, why do you do this work?
Steve Keen:
Because I believe in reality, and one thing humans have added to the planet that other species haven’t done is accumulated knowledge over time. And I’m enraged to see something pretending to be knowledge, which is actually myth and that’s neoclassical economics and in fact, those are extreme Marxists in economics, too. So, I want to get a realistic approach to economics first and foremost. And I just realized that we’ve got people stuck in group thinking about the extreme left with the Marxist world, and the extreme right with the neoclassicals, that are getting us fantasies rather than understanding of reality. So I want us to understand the world we live in, and I want us to preserve it as well.
Nina Turner:
My name is Nina Turner. I am a former Ohio State Senator representing the Cuyahoga County and Lake County areas. And I am a National Co-Chair for Senator Bernie Sanders, 2020 Presidential campaign.
Stephanie:
Why do you do this work? Why are you involved?
Nina Turner:
Oh my God, it’s a mission. Oh my God. I feel compelled. It’s a ministry. I’ve always had this ministry of service, so whether it was in my capacity as a big sister. You’re giving me the opportunity to really share with people who are engaged in this dialogue with us, is that my mother died at a very young age. She died when she was 42 years old.
Stephanie:
Wow. I’m sorry.
Nina Turner:
Yep. Oh my God. Me, too. I’m about to tear up just thinking about it. I miss her so very much, but she was really young, 42 years old, aneurism burst in her brain and I’m the oldest of seven children, and my baby sister was 12 when our mom died. All of us are two years apart. And that was really a defining moment for me. And I’ve always been pushed by my grandmother to be the best and to be of service and to have my mom’s [inaudible 00:16:36] and just really submissive something to me that I wanted to make her proud, even in death.
And every day, every move that I make from being an elected official, whatever level, whether it was local level or state level, government being a college professor, being a wife, a mom, I’ve always tried to have as my guiding principle, my guidance force, those words that my grandmother spoke to me, which was to be the best and to be of service. So this is a ministry for me, and it is informed by my lived experience. And my mother who was under-insured, who was among the working poor, who had a job and didn’t have a job, had a job, didn’t have a job, had a job, didn’t have a job. And the stress of being a custodial parent to seven children, and then on top of being a black woman in America, that’s a lot. And, I believe that stress killed my mom.
But it is because of her memory and because of all of that my grandmother, her mother, instilled in me, that when to whom much is given, much is required. Everything that I do, I do it as if it is a ministry. And I consider myself very much a hell raising humanitarian. I don’t go along to get along. I will stand up and I take the hard hits, and I have taken hard hits and I continue to take hard hits. But I’m doing what I believe is right, what is just, and what is good. And in that way, I’m just so inspired because I come from a working class family. I know what it means to be really, really, really, really poor, not to have food, have my mother cry herself to sleep at night because she couldn’t afford to buy seven kids Christmas gifts, feeling like a failure. A mom who at times wanted to commit suicide.
So I did it and I’m just so committed. So pushing very hard to decrease the number of people who feel like my mom. And because I have been blessed to be a cycle breaker from being a first generation college graduate, to being elected to high offices, to running for statewide office, to serving as a national surrogate to Senator Bernie Sanders in 2016 and now to be a national co-chair for him in 2020. I have been given much, even though I had to come up the rough side of the mountain. And so, it is my moral obligation to use my voice, to give back and to speak and amplify the voices of people who do not have, who struggle and try every single day. So it is the hell raising humanitarian in me, Stephanie, that keeps me going every single day.
Luigi Zingales:
So I am Luigi Zingales. I am a professor of finance at the University of Chicago, Booth School of Business. I’m a director of a center called Stigler Center, whose goal is to study our vested interests of subverting the competitive market economy.
Nick:
Why do you do this work?
Luigi Zingales:
Because I love it.
Nick:
What you love about it?
Luigi Zingales:
Honestly, I think that the study of economics is a study of how to improve people’s lives, at least from an economic point of view. Of course, there are many dimension of people lives, but I think that this is one, and it’s very important. And being able to study how to do it is extremely rewarding.
Priti Krishtel:
My name is Priti Krishtel. I’m the co-founder and co-executive director of an organization called I-MAK, the Initiative for Medicines Access and Knowledge. I do this work because I think that our children and grandchildren are going to feel the effects of the choices we make right now. Every time we go to the pharmacy, we’re feeling the effects of the system. It is only going to grow by the time my son is grown up. And so, that’s why I do this work.
Paul Krugman:
I’m Paul Krugman, Professor of Economics at the Graduate Center of the city of New York, columnist for The New York Times and author of Arguing with Zombies.
Goldy:
So, we have one final question for you. And that is, why do you do the work that you do?
Paul Krugman:
I think, basically, in the hope that I can make a little bit of a difference. You don’t have grandiose visions. One of the things that kind of an interesting thing. I’ve somehow or other ended up with the best journalistic spot in the world, op-ed page in The New York Times and my ability to move public opinion is still almost invisible. You can, at best, nudge things a little bit. But it can make some difference. I think I played some role in us not privatizing social security, which is the first thing I talk about in Arguing with Zombies. I think I played some role in us getting even an incomplete healthcare reform. I argued against destructive austerity policies, and unfortunately kind of lost that argument but it was the right argument to make. So if you can make a little bit of a difference, especially in something… Economics is about society, and if you can make society even infinitesimally better, then you’ve justified your existence.
Katrine Marcal :
My name is Katrine Marcal. I’m a journalist and author, and I’m the author of Who Cooked Adam Smith’s Dinner, which is a book on women and economics and it has been translated into 20 languages.
Stephanie:
So we ask every one of our guests at the end of our interviews, why do you do this work?
Katrine Marcal :
God, that’s a good question. I should have prepared. Why do I do this work? I just, I don’t know. I can’t stop. I just find it so fascinating. Really, I mean, it maybe selfish, I want to know. I want to understand these things. I want to understand why the world is the way it is, and I think especially with these economic theories, and I think I do write this in the book in Who Cooked Adam Smith’s Dinner. That if you’re sort of happy with the world and the way it is, and you think that, you look around and you see the inequality and you see the poverty and you think, “Well, this is actually… this is rather good.”
Then you can afford to invest in this model of economics, of rational choice and self-interest that doesn’t have much to do with reality and with how human beings really work. But, if you do actually want to change things, if you do think something else is possible and should be possible, then you need to try to understand how the economy really works, and I think that’s what drives me. I want to know. I want to understand and I want to do my bit there. And I love writing. I do. I do love to write.
Gabriel Zucman:
I’m Gabriel Zucman. I’m a professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley, and I’m the coauthor of the Triumph of Injustice, How the Rich Dodge Taxes and How to Make Them Pay.
Goldy:
Why do you do what you do?
Gabriel Zucman:
I do this because I think inequality is indeed the defining challenge of our time. And I look at history and I see the downloads of policies that affect inequality, of course, antitrust, financial regulation, access to higher education. All of that matters or not, but taxation and progressive taxation, in particular, probably is the most important one, in the sense that historically the big changes in income and wealth concentration have been linked to changes in progressive taxation. And so, if we care about inequality, if we take seriously this idea that it’s one of the defining challenges of our time, then naturally you need to think about how to make progressive taxation work in the 21st century.
Lisa D Cook:
My name is Lisa D. Cook. I am an associate professor of economics and international relations at Michigan State University. I’m doing this work because I have always done this work. I desegregated something every single year I was growing up. It was the pool.
Nick:
Wow.
Lisa D Cook:
It was the school. It was the hospital. It was the restaurants. And I grew up in the rural South, so this happened a lot later than it did in the rest of the country, or it is happening a lot later than it has in the rest of the country. And I think that this is something that I was prepared to do. I was trained to do and trained in nonviolent change. So I don’t think that this is the place I wound up, it’s economics, where I’ve wound up. This is somewhat serendipitous, but the training that I got and the kind of optimism I’ve always felt, I’m just bringing to this job. And that’s why I continue to do this work.
Anna:
My name is Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman. I am currently a research scholar economics at Harvard University. For me, I do this work because I have to. Doing this work is absolutely necessary in order for this profession to move forward, in a way that is conducive to our world and to society, in general. We have to acknowledge that the voices that have been suppressed for literally a hundred years, starting with Sadie Alexander, and even before that, absolutely have to be unearthed in this next iteration of talking about social justice and talking about different issues that affect marginalized communities. So for me, it’s a labor of love and I’m honored and humbled to be doing it.
Marshall Steinbaum:
My name is Marshall Steinbaum. I’m an assistant professor of economics at the University of Utah. I guess what motivates me on a day-to-day basis is generally getting angry and righteous about something. And there’s plenty to get angry and righteous about when you look at the sorts of economic debates that take place in public and even among economists. There’s a concede among economists that policymakers don’t understand economics, the public doesn’t understand economics. If only all these stakeholders and voters or whoever you want to talk about, understood economics, then we would have the right policies, the world would operate efficiently. And that is just such a radical misinterpretation of the way policies actually gets made, the way public debate happens and what economics is. I mean, it’s economist who don’t understand economics and that scheme.
Goldy:
Yes.
Marshall Steinbaum:
And that as an economist, that’s not a state of affairs that I can tolerate.
Naomi Klein:
I’m Naomi Klein. My new book is On Fire: The Burning Case for a Green New Deal.
Jessyn:
One of the, just as a final question, it would be really great if you could take a moment and reflect on why you continue to do this work.
Naomi Klein:
Oh, dear. I mean, look. I am motivated. I know. I don’t know if I can be only high on it. It’s a mixture of terror at what will happen if we don’t do this work. I have a seven year old. He is so in love with the natural world. I never want to have to tell him that we allowed the places that he loves to collapse because we could have done something we didn’t. So I guess it’s a combination of fear of these worst outcomes, but also I’m so inspired by this new generation of activists that are out there who are really not afraid of deep change.
I think they didn’t grow up with the same economic, ideological indoctrination that I had, that my generation had. They’ve grown up in the rubble of the post 2008 financial crash and they know that these systems are collapsing. They want to make connections. They are fiercely internationalist. Greta Thunberg, when she spoke at the UN, she said, “You stole my childhood.” And it was so heartbreaking to hear her say that. And I just feel like, geez, if these kids are giving up their childhoods. I mean, the least we can do is give up evenings and weekends and try to organize our coworkers, and maybe our retirees can give up a few cruises.
They’re giving up so much. So maybe it’s not a high note, but I just feel like this is a moment where everybody has to step up in such a big way. And every half a degree of warming that we’re able to ward off is a win. And every policy that we introduced that lights up the humanitarian parts of ourselves and keeps us from turning on each other, is going to help us hold onto our humanity in the hot future that is ahead.
George Monbiot:
I’m George Monbiot. I’m a journalist and campaigner, professional troublemaker, or so I’m told.
Goldy:
Yeah.
George Monbiot:
I wrote about a wide range of subjects, particularly environmental, political, economic subjects. Really all the stuff, which I find fascinating and I think it’s important.
Goldy:
Why do you do what you do?
George Monbiot:
Yes. Well, that’s a very good question. I couldn’t live any other way. A few years ago, I wrote down what I felt were the activities that made life meaningful and purposive, and they were to love and be loved. That, of course, is fundamental to a good life. They were to learn and to teach, to create and to try to do good. And you could do all that for entirely selfish reasons. Now, I don’t know which of my reasons are selfish and which might be altruistic, but all of those things make me feel like I’ve got a fulfilling life.
So yeah, that’s sort of selfish, he done it reason for that. But it feels fulfilling because it happens to align with what I think is the sort of a map for creating a better world. And so, if I were to stop doing what I do, I would be miserable. Because I would feel that my life had lost much of its meaning and much of its purpose and much of its delight. And actually doing all those things, fills my life with meaning every day, because I have to basically roll in the shit of humanity. I mean, that’s my job. I write a column for The Guardian about all the terrible things that we’re doing and what we might do about it. My life could be really miserable. I have to confront a lot of things-
Goldy:
Yeah. Terrible things. Yeah.
George Monbiot:
… that other people then turn their faces away from. But actually, my life is quite wonderful. It’s fulfilling and rich and delightful because I’m engaged every day in these questions.
Diane Ravitch:
Hi. This is Diane Ravitch. I am a historian of education. I’ve been writing about education for many, many years, and my new book is coming out in January. It’s called Slaying Goliath, and it’s about the resistance to efforts to privatize public education.
Nick:
Why are you still doing this? Why aren’t you retired?
Diane Ravitch:
First of all, I feel I have a lot to make up for. I had years of advocating for high stakes testing and accountability, and teachers and students have to be held accountable if their scores don’t go up. And so, I had this awakening about a decade ago and said, “I’m wrong.” So I have a lot to make up for. But I also just feel very strongly that as a society, we can’t continue to go in the direction we’re going in now without losing something that I’ve believed in all my life, which is, I grew up revering America, and this present moment we live in today with a president who is openly racist. It’s terrifying. It’s like all of the things I grew up believing are turning out to be at risk. And I want to see the America that I’ve always believed in become good for everybody and not just for me. Not just for my kids, not just for your kids, but for all the kids. If that sounds corny, maybe it’s because it is.
Nick:
No. Not at all.
Anand:
I’m Anand Giridharadas. I’m a writer and I’m the author of Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World. I think I write and write nonfiction and try to think about books as biopsies of a society and a moment in time. And I do that because I think in a large and complex and affluent society, such as ours, there are so many people who are so invested in stories about reality, that sometimes reality is a casualty. And I think about writers as the people who are paid to tell the clear-eyed truth. They’re not paid to rep a particular company and make it look good, or paid to represent a particular ideology or party.
And while it’s important that a lot of people out there are doing those kinds of jobs, building things, repping things, advocating for things. I think it’s important to keep around a certain number of village gossips, who talk to people, who find out what people really think and try to tell the truth. I got especially lucky with this book, that the truths in this book were not my private truths. They weren’t things that only I thought. They were in the way of the village gossip, the thing that a lot of people secretly thought, but couldn’t say because they got a job, their healthcare depends on going back to that foundation tomorrow. And I think it’s important to have some people in the society to whom people whisper about the truths they can’t say, because those people, those writers can say it in their stead.
Nick:
I love it. That’s a good answer. So on the next episode of Pitchfork Economics, I’m super excited to get to talk to Oren Cass who is sort of leading the fight to restore conservative economics. And that should be a really interesting discussion.
Annie:
Pitchfork Economics is produced by Civic Ventures. If you like the show, make sure to subscribe, rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts. Find us on Twitter and Facebook at Civic Action, and Nick Hanauer follow our writing on medium at Civic Skunk Works and peek behind the podcast scenes on Instagram at Pitchfork Economics. As always from our team at Civic Ventures, thanks for listening. See you next week.