Robert H. Frank is an economics professor at Cornell's Johnson Graduate School of Management, a regular "Economic View" columnist for The New York Times, and a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Demos. Robert Frank's latest book is The Darwin Economy: Liberty, Competition, and the Common Good in which he contends that naturalist Charles Darwin was a greater economist than Adam Smith. In The Darwin Economy, Frank argues against Adam Smith's theory of the "invisible hand" which says that competition channels self-interest for the common good. "The uncritical celebration of the invisible hand," writes Frank, "has undermined regulatory efforts to reconcile conflicts between individual and collective interests..., causing considerable harm to all of us." Roger Baker, who writes about economics and transportation for The Rag Blog, participated in this interiew.
Host and Producer: Thorne Dreyer; Engineer and Co-Producer: Tracey Schulz. Rag Radio is produced in the studios of KOOP 91.7-FM, an all-volunteer, cooperatively-run community radio station in Austin, Texas, in association with The Rag Blog (theragblog.blogspot.com) and the New Journalism Project. Underwriting announcements and transition music have been removed from this podcast. Running time: 57:25.