This blog post is part of AEI’s Best Podcasts of 2021 series. Click here to see other AEI podcast hosts’ favorite episodes of the year.

On the “Hardly Working” podcast, I explore national trends
and public policies affecting the vitality of the American workforce and how we
can prepare ourselves for success in our rapidly-changing economy. In each
episode, I engage with leading experts, authors, policymakers, and
practitioners on topics like automation, artificial intelligence, workforce
retraining, and college education in prison.

Here are the top 5 episodes of “Hardly Working” from 2021:

1. Thomas Chatterton Williams on Race, Identity, and a Writer’s Vocation — Episode #63, December 16

In this episode, AEI nonresident fellow and cultural critic Thomas Chatterton Williams sat down to talk about his personal journey and his thoughts on race in America. Williams’s two books Losing My Cool, published in 2010 and Self Portrait in Black and White, published in 2019, tie together personal memoir and philosophy to provide a fresh perspective on America’s history of racial discrimination and present reckoning with defining race and understanding its impacts. Williams discusses the importance of liberal arts education in shaping his own vocation, his motivation for writing, and importantly, his philosophy on race and identity in America.

2. Andrew Donaldson on American Culture, Writing, and Vocation — Episode #60, November 18

When we hear the
word “vocation,” many people think of vocational training and technical
education. But the word “vocation” has deeper roots in the idea of a calling or
an occupation to which a person is especially drawn, suited, trained, or
qualified. By no means is this calling obvious; finding vocation often means a
series of unpredictable twists and turns until one finds themselves in a career
they would never have imagined at the beginning of their journey.

Andrew Donaldson joined me to discuss his own vocational journey. Andrew is a writer at Ordinary Times magazine and Yonder and Home, where he ties together politics, history, culture, food, faith, and place through words and stories. We discussed Andrew’s upbringing in West Virginia, his military career and vocational transition out of the military, the ongoing crisis of opioid addiction in Appalachia, and of course his writing on everything from Waffle House to the bifurcation of conservatism. Donaldson’s story reflects relentless perseverance, profound sense of place, and the sorts of connections — to family, food, and faith — that sit at the heart of what it means to be human.

3. Paul Ryan on Poverty and Opportunity in 21st Century America — Episode #59, November 10

In the 1960s,
President Lyndon B. Johnson began the so-called War on Poverty, expanding the
federal government’s role in reducing poverty in the United States. At one level,
this effort has been an overwhelming success: Consumption poverty (the number
of people who cannot afford basic goods and services) has fallen from 30
percent to 3 percent. At another level, the War on Poverty has failed: Severe
poverty continues to persist especially in terms of social dysfunction like
unmarried births, educational failure, addiction and incarceration.

The US last reformed
its welfare system in 1996, bringing significant new reductions to welfare
dependency and child poverty. Some policymakers have begun to suggest that a
new round of reform that seeks to shift public benefit programs more toward
empowerment rather than maintenance of individuals and families. They hope to
create opportunities for Americans by strengthening communities, increasing
social capital, and spurring economic growth.

For this episode of
“Hardly Working,” I sat down with Paul Ryan, former Speaker of the US House of
Representatives and founder of the American Idea Foundation. We discussed how he
reconciles his commitment to the free market with his Catholic faith, his
efforts to advance evidence-based policies to fight poverty, and modern-day
populism and the future of conservatism.

4. Nicholas Bloom on the Future of Remote Work — Episode #56, October 7

In March of 2020,
the remote workforce skyrocketed from just 7 percent of the working population
to nearly 40 percent at the height of the pandemic. The pandemic is winding down,
but it appears remote work is here to stay.

In this episode
of “Hardly Working,” I was joined by Stanford economist Dr. Nicholas
Bloom to talk about the future of remote work, the worker-employer contest
over returning to the office, and the productivity gains from different work
arrangements: entirely remote, in-person, or some form of hybrid work. After
nearly a decade of researching remote work, Nick brought with him extensive
quantitative knowledge of the subject and a clear, logical framework for understanding
what remote work means for workers and businesses.

5. Jamie Merisotis on the Future of Human Work — Episode #53, July 28

Twenty-first century
automation is fueling an ongoing debate around the future of work. Is the end
to human labor around the corner? Will robots replace us? The short answer is
no. The longer answer is that work is changing fast and will likely require the
capacity to adapt and constant upgrading of skills.

In this episode
of “Hardly Working”, I was joined by Jamie Merisotis, president and
CEO of the Lumina Foundation to discuss what automation means for work. We
discussed his most recent book Human Work in the
Age of Smart Machines,
the connection between education and employment, the value of human abilities,
and what the future workforce may look like and require of us.

6. Bonus: Pano Kanelos on St. John’s College and the importance of the liberal arts — Episode #52, July 15

This may be a top 5
list, but my conversation with Pano Kanelos was too good to exclude in an age
when the liberal arts are a frequent political punching bag for partisans on
both sides of the aisle. Progressives have gotten used to “deconstructing” the
“dead White males” of Western classics, leading populists to view them as
either irrelevant for finding work or an actual threat to students’
well-being. What if neither view was right? What if the liberal arts are
more important and more beneficial than they get credit for? 

One place where this idea has been put into practice since the 1930s is St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland. St. John’s is famous for its great books curriculum, which takes the foundational texts of Western civilization seriously as the starting point for a life well lived and, somewhat surprisingly, a strong foundation for work and career. St. John’s president, Pano Kanelos, joined the podcast for a conversation about what the liberal arts are and why we need them more than ever.

The post Top 5 podcasts of 2021: ‘Hardly Working’ with Brent Orrell appeared first on American Enterprise Institute – AEI.