The Biggest Capitalists Hate Competition
EPISODE 368: Thinking inside the box.
When we’re not taste-testing athlete weed, wondering if sports are gay, or Hamburgering with Hamburger, we often find ourselves investigating power.
I am endlessly curious about what the richest and most powerful people in America don’t want you to know — from salary-cap circumvention to the pardon economy. And how those tasked with giving a shit about the rule of law have effectively colluded to preempt accountability.
Take, for instance, this article from yesterday’s Wall Street Journal:
Which means that I’ve also been thinking a lot about why a sports fan with zero to negative interest in this field of study should give a shit about these episodes.
And the word I find myself organically returning to, over and over again, is the bedrock premise of sports itself:
Competition.
And so on today’s show, our guest is bestselling author and Friend of PTFO David Epstein — no relation! — who is here to talk about what he learned while researching his terrific new book, Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better. And we make something like the selfish case for rules, at all.
P.S. I recently learned that my Aspiration/Clippers reporting is part of the legendary Prof. Peter Carfagna’s syllabus at Harvard Law School. And so I was invited to speak about these issues at their Sports Law Symposium. It was energizing to be around young people who care!
YOUTUBE SPOILER ALERT:
Bobble,
Pablo
Everyone (outside of sports where competition is the whole point) hates competition - the biggest capitalists are simply in a much better position than the rest of us to avoid it - which is why it is essential to have rigorous (though economically informed) antitrust enforcement.