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Your Call

The forces that taught us to hate government & love the free market

On this edition of Your Call, historians Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway discuss their new book, The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market.

They detail how politicians, the corporate class, and major media outlets have promoted free market ideology in all aspects of life. They say this propaganda campaign has given us the housing crisis, the opioid scourge, climate destruction, and the election of Donald Trump.

They write, "Only by understanding this history can we imagine a future where markets will serve, not stifle, democracy."

Guests:

Naomi Oreskes, professor of the History of Science at Harvard University and author of several books, including Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming and The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market

Erik Conway, historian of science and technology at the California Institute of Technology and author of several books, including Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming and The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market

Web Resources:

The Washington Post: The big business campaign that has shaped 40 years of GOP rhetoric

TIME: The True Cost of the “Free” Market

WBUR: 'The Big Myth' explores the belief that free markets are a fundamental American right

The Washington Post: Big Business’s relentless push to equate the free market with freedom

The Nation: America’s Toxic Romance With the Free Market

Rose Aguilar has been the host of Your Call since 2006. She became a regular media roundtable guest in 2001. In 2019, the San Francisco Press Club named Your Call the best public affairs program. In 2017, The Nation named it the most valuable local radio show.
Bee Soll is a producer with Your Call at KALW, and a producer, writer, and editor at KCBS Radio in San Francisco. She is a former reporter for Crosscurrents and contributor at KPFA Radio.