Erik Baker

You should bring entrepreneurs in to save this deteriorating society.

But he's kind of denigrating these alternatives.

And again, I think that part of it is there's a real sense of kind of pessimism about the ability of other kinds of people, other kinds of approaches to solving our social problems.

And entrepreneurs become...

At the very least, they can be kind of heroes of last resort, because even if they can't solve the social problems, ultimately, at least they can make a lot of money.

And there's perhaps something to be said for that.

I think that the other part of it as well is cults of personality.

There have been a lot of very charismatic cults.

The United States in particular, we love a cowboy, we love a superhero, these kind of individuals that we can turn to for salvation.

That itself is an idea that I think is almost intrinsically intertwined with the entrepreneur legend.

A phrase that I think is extremely revealing is the way that politicians often celebrate rich people as job creators.

You know, well, people do actually need jobs if they can't, you know, turn to the government, for example, to provide them.

Entrepreneurs are able to plausibly promise access to new jobs when times are tough.

That goes a long way.

I mean, this is a really important domain of people's lives.

Oh, it's been my pleasure.