Ezra Klein

It’s cliché to call podcasts wide-ranging. But this conversation, with Nobel-prize winning economist and NY Times columnist Paul Krugman, really is. A sample of what we discuss:- How economists mucked up the climate debate- What a Democratic president should pass first- The politics and policy of Medicare-for-all- Krugman’s three-part test to determine whether a program needs to be paid for (don’t miss this!)- Why Pete Buttigieg is wrong on tuition-free college - Why Andrew Yang is wrong on automation- What the Obama administration got wrong, and right, in the financial crisis- The means-testing vs. universal program debate is a false dichotomy - What it would take to revitalize the economies of middle and rural America- The productivity puzzle- The antitrust problem- Geographic inequality- Whether elite or mass opinion is the key constraint on policy ambition- Path dependence in social welfare states- Whether private insurers should exist And much more. Don’t miss this one.References: Krugman's upcoming book, Arguing with Zombies Book recommendations: An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding by David Hume Plagues and Peoples by William McNeil Collected essays of George OrwellMy book is available for pre-order! You can find it at www.EzraKlein.com.Submit questions for our upcoming "Ask Me Anything" at ezrakleinshow@vox.comYou can subscribe to Ezra's new podcast Impeachment, explained on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts, or your favorite podcast app. Credits:Producer and Editor - Jeff GeldResearcher - Roge KarmaEngineer - Cynthia Gil Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After creating and running Parks and Recreation and writing for The Office, Michael Schur decided he wanted to create a sitcom about one of the most fundamental questions of human existence: What does it mean to be a good person? That’s how The Good Place was born.Soon into the show’s writing, Schur realized he was in way over his head. The question of human morality is one of the most complicated and hotly contested subjects of all time. He needed someone to help him out. So, he recruited Pamela Hieronymi, a professor at UCLA specializing in the subjects of moral responsibility, psychology, and free will, to join the show as a “consulting philosopher” — surely a first in sitcom history.I wanted to bring Shur and Hieronymi onto the show because The Good Place should not exist. Moral philosophy is traditionally the stuff of obscure academic journals and undergraduate seminars, not popular television. Yet, three-and-a-half seasons on, The Good Place is not only one of the funniest sitcoms on TV, it has popularized academic philosophy in an unprecedented fashion and put forward its own highly sophisticated moral vision.This is a conversation about how and why The Good Place exists and what it reflects about The Odd Place in which we actually live. Unlike a lot of conversations about moral philosophy, this one is a lot of fun.References: Dylan Matthews' brilliant profile on The Good Place Dylan Matthews on why he donated his kidney Book recommendations: Michael Schur:Ordinary Vices by Judith N. ShklarThe Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carré Beloved by Toni MorrisonPamela Hieronymi:What We Owe to Each Other by T.M. ScanlonBeing and Nothingness by Jean-Paul SartreMortal Questions by Thomas NagelMy book is available for pre-order! You can find it at www.EzraKlein.com.Submit questions for our upcoming "Ask Me Anything" at ezrakleinshow@vox.comYou can subscribe to Ezra's new podcast Impeachment, explained on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts, or your favorite podcast app. Credits:Producer and Editor - Jeff GeldResearcher - Roge KarmaEngineer - Cynthia Gil Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, the fact-finding phase of the Trump impeachment inquiry officially ended. Reports were released, hearings were held, articles of impeachment are being drafted. Andrew Prokop helps us break it all down.Then, the impeachment analogue that most closely resembles what we are going through today isn’t Clinton or Nixon, it’s Andrew Johnson. Historian Brenda Wineapple, author of The Impeachers, helps us understand the trial that shaped our nation’s conception of what impeachment means.Plus, how the GOP has become a definitively anti-Constitutional party.Want to contact the show? Reach out at ezrakleinshow@vox.comEzra's book is available for pre-order! You can find it at www.EzraKlein.com.You can subscribe to Ezra's other podcast The Ezra Klein Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcastsCredits: Producer - Jeff GeldResearcher - Roge KarmaTheme music composed by Jon Natchez Special thanks to Liz Nelson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For most of his life, Wayne Hsiung was a typical overachiever. He attended the University of Chicago, started his PhD in Economics, became a law professor at Northwestern, was mentored by Cass Sunstein. But then, something snapped. In the midst of a deep, overwhelming depression, Hsiung visited a slaughterhouse and was radicalized by the immense suffering he saw. He now faces decades in prison for rescuing sick, injured animals from slaughterhouses.Hsiung is the founder of Direct Action Everywhere, an organization best known for conducting public, open rescues of animals too sick for slaughter. These rescues are, in many cases, illegal, and Hsiung and his fellow activists are risking years of imprisonment. But the sacrifice is the point: Hsiung and his colleagues are trying to highlight the sickness of a society that criminalizes doing what any child would recognize as the right thing to do.In our conversation, I wanted to understand a simple question: How did he get here? What leads someone with a safe, comfortable life to risk everything for a cause? What does society look like to him now, knowing what he faces? And the big question: Is Hsiung the weird one? Or is it all of us — who see so much suffering and injustice and simply go about our lives — who have lost our way?References: New York Times story on a DxE rescue mission Video of the mission to save Lily the piglet Book recommendations:Everything is Obvious by Duncan J. Watts The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor DostoevskyGrit by Angela DuckworthMy book is available for pre-order! You can find it at www.EzraKlein.com.Want to contact the show? Reach out at ezrakleinshow@vox.comYou can subscribe to Ezra's new podcast Impeachment, explained on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts, or your favorite podcast app. Credits:Producer and Editor - Jeff GeldResearcher - Roge KarmaEngineer - Jeremy Dalmas Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Imagine you’re walking to work. You see a child drowning in a lake. You’re about to jump in and save her when you realize you’re wearing your best suit, and the rescue will end up costing hundreds in dry cleaning bills. Should you still save the child?Of course you should. But this simple thought experiment, taken seriously, has radical implications for how you live your life.It comes from Peter Singer’s The Life You Can Save, one of the most influential modern works of ethical philosophy. Singer is perhaps the most influential public intellectual of my lifetime. His book Animal Liberation helped build America’s animal rights movement. His work helped create the effective altruism movement.In Singer’s hands, the questions that motivate a moral life are startlingly simple. But if you take them seriously, living morally is very, very hard. And the way most of us are living, right now — well, we’re letting a lot of children drown. What happens if we force ourselves to recognize that fact? What does it demand of us?That’s the topic of my conversation with Singer. We also discuss the differences between ethical philosophy and religion, why moral reasoning is a social act, the ethics of caring most about those closest to you, The Good Place, AI risk, open borders, where our obligations to others end, why Singer wouldn’t have become a philosopher if he’d been an effective altruist in his youth, and much more.Book recommendations: On Liberty by John Stuart MillThe Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven PinkerOn What Matters by Derek ParfitReasons and Persons by Derek ParfitTo read Peter SInger's book please visit www.thelifeyoucansave.orgTo learn more about effective altruism, visit Vox's Future PerfectMy book is available for pre-order! You can find it at www.EzraKlein.com.Want to contact the show? Reach out at ezrakleinshow@vox.comYou can subscribe to Ezra's new podcast Impeachment, explained on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts, or your favorite podcast app. Credits:Producer and Editor - Jeff GeldResearcher - Roge KarmaEngineers - Cynthia Gil Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices