Did the Free Market Ruin Our Economy? A Soho Forum Debate

Binyamin Appelbaum and Gene Epstein debate the resolution, "Free market ideology is largely responsible for the dismal performance of the US economy over the past few decades." ------------- For the affirmative: Binyamin Appelbaum is the lead writer on business and economics for the New York Times editorial board. He previously worked as a Washington correspondent for the Times. He is the author of The Economists’ Hour: False Prophets, Free Markets and the Fracture of Society (2019). For the negative: Gene Epstein is the Director of the Soho Forum and former Economics and Books Editor of Barron's, a position he left in January 2018 after a 26-year stint. His last published book was Econospinning: How to Read between the Lines when the Media Manipulate the Numbers. He has taught economics at the City University of New York and St. John’s University, and worked as a senior economist for the New York Stock Exchange. He has defended the negative at six Soho Forum debates. His November 2019 debate on socialism with Prof. Richard Wolff has had more than five million views on Youtube.