The Self, the Crowd, and Social Contagion (with Luke Burgis)

Welcome to Econ Talk, Conversations for the Curious, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty. I'm your host, Russ Roberts of Shalem College in Jerusalem, and Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Go to econalk.org where you can subscribe, comment on this episode, and find links and other information related to today's conversation. You'll also find our archives with every episode we've done going back to 2006. Our email address is mail at econalk.org. We'd love to hear from you. Today's April twenty eighth, twenty twenty-six, and my guest is author Luke Burgess. His latest book is The One and the Ninety Nine, Forging Identity in the Age of Social Contagion. And that is our subject for today. Luke, welcome to Econ Talk. Good to be with you. Thanks, Russ. Let's talk about the title. What is the one and the ninety nine?

Uh the one is uh the self, the I, the subject uh you and I, um, as we exist as individuals. And the ninety nine you could think of as The crowd, the many, everybody else, you know, the group that we're we're a part of. Um so This dichotomy between self and crowd has been something I've been thinking about for well over a decade. The title comes most explicitly from the parable of the lost sheep.

In the Bible. where Jesus tells a story that's familiar to many people. Um, but he he says, strangely, which of you Having one hundred sheep. And losing one would not go in search of the one, would not leave the ninety nine and go in search of the one.

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