The Answer Is Transaction Costs
"The real price of everything is the toil and trouble of acquiring it." -Adam Smith (WoN, Bk I, Chapter 5)
In which the Knower of Important Things shows how transaction costs explain literally everything. Plus TWEJ, and answers to letters.
If YOU have questions, submit them to our email at taitc.email@gmail.com
There are two kinds of episodes here:
1. For the most part, episodes June-August are weekly, short (<20 mins), and address a few topics.
2. Episodes September-May are longer (1 hour), and monthly, with an interview with a guest.
Finally, a quick note: This podcast is NOT for Stacy Hockett. He wanted you to know that.....
The Answer Is Transaction Costs
Latest Episodes
Barking Cats: On the "Nature" of Bureaucracy
Pins: Division of Labor is Limited by Transaction Costs
Commerce and Sociology: Novak on Entangled Political Economy
The Paradox of Political Rationality: Lynch
Curation Bubbles, Verification, and the Splintering of Ideology: Green
Fan Mail
Hi Mike, I'm listening to your episode on pins and division of labour and it makes me think about how "specialization of labour" can be misleading, at least in today's economy. It may be that specialization in a particular factory job involves being particularly capable at a particular rote task, e.g. laying a brass wire flat, but equally a person who has particular knowledge of law, biology and programming may be in a sense exceptionally specialized in the task of "using large language models to aggregate medical patents". Multidisciplinary and specialized sound like they should opposites, but they're really not!
Quebec