{"podcast":{"title":"The Moral Imagination","slug":"the-moral-imagination-1176352","podcast_index_feed_id":1176352,"rss_url":"https://moralimagination.libsyn.com/rss","website_url":"https://www.themoralimagination.com/podcast","image_url":"https://substackcdn.com/feed/podcast/2345140/f237656e46c06d769905a4459a214bd1.jpg","author":"Michael Matheson Miller","episode_count":63,"summary":"Michael Matheson Milller","last_synced_at":"2026-07-02T22:17:51.928287+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-moral-imagination-1176352"},"episode":{"title":"Ep. 58 William Easterly Ph.D. : Poverty, Technocracy, and the Tyranny of Experts","slug":"ep-58-william-easterly-ph-d-poverty-technocracy-and-the-tyranny-of-experts","published_at":"2024-04-25T16:23:04+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-moral-imagination-1176352/ep-58-william-easterly-ph-d-poverty-technocracy-and-the-tyranny-of-experts","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-moral-imagination-1176352","url":"https://www.themoralimagination.com/p/ep-58-william-easterly-poverty-technocracy","audio_url":"https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/143899936/7870d3894db2af1dfe6b41c3e9ee6799.mp3","summary":"Photo Credit: Tyler Follon - Wingman Visuals In this episode of the Moral Imagination Podcast, I speak with Professor William Easterly of New York University about his work in development economics, and the problems of technocracy and social engineering of the poor. Easterly worked at the World Bank from 1985-2001 and began to be troubled by a number of things, including how aid is given without much concern about how it is distributed and managed thus subsidizing bad governance and harming the poor. We discuss Peter Bauer’s critique of how foreign aid politicizes development and delayed the development of business in Africa, and Bauer’s paradox of aid: * The countries that need aid — aid will not be effective * The countries where aid will be effective — do not need aid But the key problem with the dominant model of development is not simply a lack of efficiency, but the failure to respect the rights and agency of poor people. Easterly explains that development projects often result in people being deprived of their property, political rights, and participation and consent in the very projects that are supposed to help them. He discussed the tendency to to trivialize problems in the developing world, and the lack of feedback and market tests in development policy. We discuss how the developing world can often become a a lab for experiments for technocrats and social engineers. We also talk about Hayek’s Knowledge Problem, a response to Marianna Mazucatto idea of moonshots, and what I call “embedded'“ economics. We discuss a number of issues including * “The Debate that Never Happened” - Gunnar Myrdal vs. Friedrich Hayek on development economics * Social Engineering * Technocracy and the Hubris of the Technocrat * Spontaneous Order * Edmund Burke and Friedrich Hayek *…","meta_description":"Photo Credit: Tyler Follon - Wingman Visuals In this episode of the Moral Imagination Podcast, I speak with Professor William Easterly of New York Univers…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":5659,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-moral-imagination-1176352/episodes/ep-58-william-easterly-ph-d-poverty-technocracy-and-the-tyranny-of-experts/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-moral-imagination-1176352/ep-58-william-easterly-ph-d-poverty-technocracy-and-the-tyranny-of-experts.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}