May 3, 2025· 54 min

Chris Hughes on How to Craft a Thriving Market

Orality
Model
62%
Mixed oral/literate (blogs, casual essays)

Speaker Breakdown

HostTracy Alloway(1,473 words)
M:94%
HostJoe Weisenthal(1,218 words)
M:29%
GuestChris Hughes(6,292 words)
M:28%

Oral Indicators

Agonistic30%
literally, completely, very
Engagement63%
you, our, your
Memory Aids100%
listen, now, right
Repetition100%
like (84x), it's (61x), think (60x)
Parallelism76%
And I'm Tracy Alloway...., And fittingly, given that we w..., So you're going to listen to o...
Sound Patterns47%
46 question(s), alliteration: "markets move", alliteration: "barclays brief"
Formulaic Phrases6%
you know what, i mean, so to speak

Literate Indicators

Hedging8%
fairly, seemingly, somewhat
Passive Voice7%
are often, be concentrated, is crafted
Abstract Nouns22%
investment, recommendation, location
Subordination9%
because, until, since
Sentence Length41%
Avg: 15.3 words/sentence
Word Complexity48%
investment, analyze, anticipate
Academic Markers0%
Impersonal Style37%
619 personal pronouns found
Descriptive Style88%
literally, completely, recently

Description

Over the last several years, both parties in the US have been drifting away from laissez-faire thinking about the economy, and more towards the view that the state has an active role in shaping markets. You have Republicans talking about stricter anti-trust and sovereign wealth funds, and of course Democrats embracing things like industrial policy efforts in key strategic sectors. But how do you design markets well? When does it fail? And what is the history of this type of thing in the US. In this episode, we speak with Facebook co-founder-turned-economist Chris Hughes, who has published the new book Marketcrafters: The 100-Year Struggle to Shape the American Economy. In this conversation, recorded at the New York Public Library in April, we talk about his research on the history of marketcraft in the US, and how that study of history informs his understanding of today's economic policymaking. Read more: Markets Plummet as Tariff-War Woes Fuel Exodus From US Assets Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox — now delivered every weekday — plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.