Our Long Walk

If an enslaved person would pay above market price for their own freedom, why didn't the market produce abolition? How did a European trade good become a continent-wide arms race? Did Africa's underdevelopment and Europe's rise have the same cause?
In this episode of Our Long Walk, Johan Fourie and Jonathan Schoots speak with Warren Whatley, a Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Michigan and a leading scholar of the economic history of Africa and African Americans. His new book, Slavery, Freedom and Development: How Africa Became the Mirror Image of Europe (Cambridge University Press), examines why the two sides of the Atlantic moved in opposite directions over six centuries.
This podcast is produced with the help of Voice Note Productions. Our producer is Vasti Calitz with editing done by Andri Burnett. Kelsey Lemon provided helpful research assistance. For more information about the episode and to subscribe to Johan's newsletter, visit ourlongwalk.com.

Imagine you're a Nigerian law student studying for the bar. You open ChatGPT. It can tell you, confidently, the capital of Arizona. It cannot tell you how a Lagos magistrate is likely to rule. About 52 per cent of the open internet is in English. Four or five other languages split most of the rest. Igbo is not on that list. Neither is Yoruba, Swahili, Amharic, or Ewe.
So whose questions does the model know how to answer, and whose does it fumble? Who decided what "general" intelligence means, and why does it keep speaking English?
In this episode of Our Long Walk, Johan Fourie and Jonathan Schoots speak with Chinasa T. Okolo, founder of TechnoCultura, an AI and emerging technologies policy specialist at the United Nations, and a contributor to the World Bank's forthcoming World Development Report. She finished her PhD in computer science at Cornell, studying how non-expert users actually engage with AI. Her attention sits where the frontier labs do not look: the global majority.
Find Chinasa’s writing here.
This podcast is produced with the help of Voice Note Productions. Our producer is Vasti Calitz with editing done by Andri Burnett. Kelsey Lemon provided helpful research assistance. For more information about the episode and to subscribe to Johan's newsletter, visit ourlongwalk.com.

In this bonus episode of Our Long Walk, host Johan Fourie welcomes Tyler Cowen for a live interview recorded on 13 March at Stellenbosch University, in front of an audience of students and faculty. Tyler Cowen holds the Holbert Harris Chair of Economics at George Mason University, where he chairs and directs the Mercatus Center; he is the author of more than 20 books, co-founder of the blog Marginal Revolution and its companion online platform Marginal Revolution University, host of the podcast Conversations with Tyler, and founder of Emergent Ventures, a fellowship and grant program for social entrepreneurs.
The conversation opens with what South Africa can learn from Adam Smith on the 250th anniversary of The Wealth of Nations (from cutting red tape to start a business, to adopting a steady-growth "Denmark model" rather than chasing China-style booms), moves through Tyler's case that South Africa is safer and more culturally vibrant than international headlines suggest, and then turns to the role of AI in universities, the future of coding jobs, progress studies as a curriculum, how economists communicate ideas to the public, the social value of wine and declining alcohol consumption, and how Tyler now spots talent by asking candidates about their last few AI prompts rather than their open browser tabs.
For more information about the episode and to subscribe to Johan’s newsletter, visit ourlongwalk.com.

Why have economists spent so long studying firms and markets while largely ignoring the family? Who really holds power inside a household, and what gives them that power? Is the decline of marriage a sign of social breakdown, or a quiet demand for something better? Can a centuries-old practice like bride price survive massive shifts in the economy that created it?
In this episode, Johan Fourie and Jonathan Schoots speak with Alessandra Voena, Professor of Economics at Stanford University, about power inside the household, and why it matters far beyond the home. Her work shows that bargaining power is shaped not only by income, but by institutions – inheritance, divorce law, property rights, and the social norms that determine whether women can exercise real choice.

Some of Alessandra’s relevant work:
Bride Price and Female Education
How are gender norms perceived?
Age of Marriage, Weather Shocks, and the Direction of Marriage Payments

This podcast is produced with the help of Voice Note Productions. Our producer is Vasti Calitz with editing done by Andri Burnett. Kelsey Lemon provided helpful research assistance. For more information about the episode and to subscribe to Johan's newsletter, visit ourlongwalk.com.

Can the language of "helping" be used to justify conquest? And when development raises incomes but removes agency, has anything actually improved?
In this episode of Our Long Walk, Johan Fourie and Jonathan Schoots speak with Bill Easterly, Professor Emeritus of Economics at New York University. Bill has spent much of his career challenging the idea that development is primarily a technical problem with a technical solution. His new book, Violent Saviors, traces a recurring pattern through history: how the promise of progress and prosperity has repeatedly been used to justify outsiders taking control over other societies — and why that logic still shows up in modern debates.
Some of Bill's work mentioned:
Violent Saviors
This podcast is produced with the help of Voice Note Productions. Our producer is Vasti Calitz with editing done by Andri Burnett. Kelsey Lemon provided helpful research assistance.
For more information about the episode and to subscribe to Johan's newsletter, visit ourlongwalk.com.