The Big Myth: Erik Conway explains how American business taught us to loathe government and love the free market

In this KEEN ON episode, Andrew talks to the co-author of THE BIG MYTH, Erik Conway, about how American business taught us to loathe government and love the free market ideologies of neo-liberal economists like Milton Friedman. Erik Conway is a historian of science and technology residing in Altadena, CA, and works for the California Institute of Technology. He is the author of seven books, on topics as diverse as aviation infrastructure development in the 1930s and 1940s to Mars exploration in the 2000s, and dozens of articles and essays. He is currently finishing a history of near-Earth asteroids research. In 2011, Conway shared the Watson Davis and Helen Miles Davis prize from the History of Science Society with Naomi Oreskes for their book Merchants of Doubt, which has been translated into 7 languages. It became the basis for the 2014 documentary by the same title, produced by Robby Kenner and Participant Media. He is the co-author of THE BIG MYTH: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market (2023) Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe