Working Papers
The Anatomy of Capital Returns over the Very Long Run: Germany, 1465–2025
Economics Working Paper 26128
November 6, 2026
Recorded on May 28, 2020
In his new book, The Decadent Society, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat presents a theory: “Western society stopped advancing in the second half of the 20th century, and the combination of wealth and technological proficiency with economic stagnation, political stalemates, cultural exhaustion, and demographic decline creates a strange kind of ‘sustainable decadence,’ a civilizational languor that could endure for longer than we think.” Against this backdrop, Peter Robinson and Douthat discuss movies, TV shows, the iPhone, SpaceX, and the 747, with some detours into the COVID-19 crisis and our current political situation.
To view the transcript of this conversation, click here.
Cast
Ross Douthat
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