Tyler Cowen and Richard Hanania Read Nostromo, Then Debate Politics and Media

Tyler Cowen welcomes Richard Hanania, author of Kakistocracy: Why Populism Ends in Disaster. Rather than focus immediately on contemporary politics, they begin with Joseph Conrad’s novel Nostromo, which Cowen reread and Hanania had recently read for the first time.

Hanania describes the fictional Latin American country of Costaguana, the Occidental Province and the mine run by Charles Gould. Foreign investors support a moderate government until an uprising threatens the arrangement; the seaman Nostromo works for a shipping company tied to those interests.

Hanania introduces Nostromo as a seaman whose relationships with hotel proprietor Giorgio Viola and his family become central to the story. The mine and the province provide the setting for personal as well as political conflicts.

Cowen notes that the novel appeared in 1904 and credits critic F. R. Leavis with helping revive its reputation. He finds the long, deliberately non-linear book difficult but rewarding: its complex structure reflects a complex world.

Hanania says he used maps and AI assistance to follow unfamiliar geography and details. He found the political setting strikingly recognizable and reads the novel as relatively sympathetic to business and foreign capital.

Cowen places the novel among his favorite books despite its length. He notes that the story is not presented in a simple chronological sequence and asks readers to hold several strands together.

Hanania compares the book’s political outlook with later debates about Latin America. His initial impression is that the fictional setting feels modern even though the novel predates many twentieth-century ideological movements.

Cowen agrees that it feels topical but reads it differently. For him Conrad portrays a society trapped by history, rent seeking, plutocracy and corruption; socialism is a later symptom rather than the sole cause. He regards the book as valuable reading for development economics.

Hanania sees a dilemma: outside capital and expertise can bring development, yet wealthy foreigners can easily become politically unpopular. The mine brings benefits, he argues, even as its supporters face hostile rhetoric and threats.

Cowen sees a critique of classical liberalism too. Ideas of liberty and democracy enter a difficult setting and become entangled with corruption and interest groups. He reads Conrad as skeptical that foreign rule or any imported political formula will solve the underlying problem.

Hanania asks whether the province’s higher living standards and the miners’ loyalty to Gould show real progress. Cowen responds that Conrad is concerned with moral progress as well as material output, and sees little of the former.

Cowen connects his interpretation to Conrad’s experience of growing up under foreign rule. He sees Conrad as wary of foreign influence without necessarily claiming that the previous order was better.

Hanania acknowledges Conrad’s interest in honor, loyalty and personal relationships, but argues that the author can still prefer liberalism to its alternatives. Cowen instead emphasizes contingency and a tragic political vision in which familiar human failings reappear at different levels of wealth and power.

Hanania thinks Conrad cares about honor and love as well as politics. He points to the loyalties of Monygham and Decoud as examples of the novel’s personal relationships.

They disagree over Charles Gould. Hanania asks what a better mine owner could realistically have done and sees Gould as far preferable to the violent generals. Cowen contrasts Gould with his wife, whom he sees as decent but without power, and treats the situation as tragic.

Hanania asks whether anyone could operate the mine while remaining as morally untroubled as Mrs. Gould. Cowen accepts that she lacks the power to do so, reinforcing his sense of the novel’s tragic choices.

Cowen turns to Nostromo’s names and reputation. He calls the character vain and corrupt, pointing to the theft and his indifference to violence. Hanania considers him a flawed antihero whose theft is understandable in context and whose bravery earned some of his reputation.

Hanania argues that Nostromo’s reputation rests partly on real courage. Cowen replies that the character becomes absorbed by the mine and the surrounding culture, comparing his corruption with a less extreme version of Kurtz’s story in Heart of Darkness.

Their disagreement continues over Nostromo’s relationships with the Viola daughters. Cowen reads the treatment as transactional and damaging; Hanania accepts that the contrast with other relationships is important but considers vanity, rather than deliberate cruelty, central to the character.

Cowen interprets Nostromo’s dealings with the daughters as superficial and mediated through their father. Hanania concedes that the contrast with other couples is meaningful but still judges him less harshly.

Cowen reads a passage in which familiar political words acquire a sinister meaning in Costaguana. He sees Conrad’s liberal sympathies mixed with dismay at what political ideals become in practice. Hanania agrees the passage matters but resists concluding that liberalism is futile everywhere.

For Hanania, the question is whether Conrad thinks liberal ideas should be abandoned in such circumstances or whether their local distortion is the object of criticism. He is not convinced the novel gives the most cynical answer.

They discuss José Avellanos and the novel’s treatment of liberal politics. Hanania sees him as an unusually decent figure and a possible moral center; Cowen finds irony in the liberals’ faith in a newspaper as an answer to political danger.

Cowen reads irony into the liberals’ response to their opponents: founding a newspaper can look absurdly inadequate to the political forces around them. Hanania accepts their flaws but insists the alternatives remain important.

Hanania compares flawed foreign interests with generals he considers far worse. Cowen suggests their reading differs because Hanania looks for comparative political outcomes, whereas Conrad is more interested in the tragic situations people inhabit.

Cowen compares Conrad to Shakespeare, who he says is less concerned with ranking rulers than with revealing the situations and choices people face. Hanania accepts that the human story is central while still reading the book politically.

Hanania agrees that the novel is deeply concerned with humanity, honor and the bonds between people, even if he also sees an implicit political vision. They briefly compare The Secret Agent, whose depiction of would-be terrorists they both find bleak.

Cowen asks why Nostromo repeatedly scrambles its timeline. Hanania enjoys piecing it together and suggests the fragmented narrative resembles how historical events are later remembered: complicated sequences become a jumble with only a few details retained.

Hanania says tracking the chronology was enjoyable for him: a scene near the end can connect back to a moment presented at the beginning. He interprets the confusion as part of the novel’s account of how people experience events.

The relative absence of religion also interests Cowen. He reads it as consistent with the novel’s tragic outlook, while Hanania points to a few less flattering religious references. Both acknowledge uncertainty about how to interpret particular passages.

Cowen notes that a Spanish colonial setting might lead a reader to expect more about Catholic and Indigenous religion. Hanania recalls a few references but agrees they do not form a major, positively portrayed theme.

Hanania admires Conrad’s portrayal of individual principles and passions and says politics should be less romanticized. They discuss Conrad’s essay “Autocracy and War,” written around the Russo-Japanese War, and his views of nations and imperial power.

They connect Conrad’s essay to his hostility to tsarist Russia and his concern about future wars. Hanania sees a form of national attachment in Conrad that he distinguishes from modern nativism.

Cowen argues that travel and geography are fundamental forms of knowledge in Conrad: seeing a place matters more than simply ranking political systems. Hanania agrees that the author’s attention to particular places and cultures is central to his appeal.

Cowen finds the experience of being somewhere especially important in works such as Heart of Darkness and Lord Jim. Hanania wonders what Conrad would make of changes to the places he described.

Cowen raises Fredric Jameson’s claim that a Latin American writer could not have written Nostromo. They contrast Conrad’s outsider perspective with the nostalgia Cowen finds in some writing by Gabriel García Márquez. Cowen is struck by Conrad’s depiction of a region he had not closely visited.

They discuss the novel’s references to US capital and compare the fictional province with Panama. Both describe Panama as a relative success, while Cowen recalls that its later trajectory was not obvious to him around 1980.

Cowen asks how Hanania prepared. Hanania read the novel, other Conrad works, Maya Jasanoff’s biography and the essay “Autocracy and War.” He prefers to encounter a book without too much advance explanation and to read the original works rather than only summaries.

Cowen searched JSTOR and printed a selection of critical essays, but found only a few useful. He wonders whether some literary critics know the literature better than the places they discuss.

Hanania watched documentaries about the Congo River after reading Heart of Darkness and the biography. He was struck by the river’s scale and geography. Cowen connects the region’s economic history to Conrad’s concern with societies that fail to realize apparent opportunities.

Cowen values reading a difficult, high-quality novel twice in succession. Hanania’s second pass alternated between an audiobook and an e-reader; he says a skilled narrator adds a performative dimension.

The discussion turns to crime in Latin America. Hanania says Nostromo did not substantially change his previous view: political violence in the novel differs from contemporary street crime, although he sees a possible long connection through political dysfunction.

Hanania proposes that some countries combine civil liberties and democratic institutions with weak state capacity. He is struck by reports of criminal leaders operating from prison. This is his explanation for part of the violence, not a conclusion the discussion establishes.

Cowen notes that poverty does not always translate into high everyday crime and suggests dense local social ties can constrain behavior. Hanania offers an example from his family’s rural Jordanian background and also emphasizes community ties.

For Colombia, Cowen proposes a mix of incomplete nation-building, rapid urbanization, valuable drug markets and difficult geography. Hanania questions whether geography alone explains weak control in cities, where the state is physically nearby.

They discuss how the spatial concentration of violence changes people’s experience of cities. Cowen compares South Africa and Brazil, while acknowledging that the broader social consequences of restrictive building policies cannot be judged on crime alone.

Cowen asks Hanania about Shakespeare. Hanania distinguishes historical greatness, influence and innovation from a claim that an imagined outside observer could objectively rank every writer. He thinks prestige and social context shape how art is appreciated.

Cowen names Shakespeare as the greatest English-language writer. Hanania says he would defer to the historical consensus while maintaining that an objective ranking independent of human culture is unanswerable. They disagree over how much this concedes.

Asked to take one author’s complete works into confinement, Hanania chooses Conrad for the opportunity to read more and reread difficult work. Cowen agrees that Conrad rewards rereading.

They revisit Hanania’s defense of established media. He still thinks journalistic institutions compare favorably with much of the alternative information environment. Cowen agrees institutions matter but says his view of media has declined, particularly because of coverage of AI.

Hanania agrees that technology coverage can have a negativity bias. Yet he argues that criticism should be comparative: weakening professional institutions also raises the standing of alternative sources, which have their own weaknesses.

Cowen asks whether declining information quality could eventually spread even to better-funded media. Hanania says it is possible but remains hopeful that an audience for serious work and changing technology will preserve alternatives.

Hanania is optimistic that AI tools may help some people examine misinformation and conspiracy claims, partly because they can respond patiently to detailed arguments. He presents this as a possibility, not a guarantee that technology will improve public discourse.

Asked to name worthwhile voices on the populist right, Hanania mentions Steve Sailer, Helen Andrews and Dominic Cummings, while qualifying his views of their work. His stated criterion is a degree of independence from reflexive partisan hostility.

Cowen asks how to reconcile criticism of right-wing populism with a strong stock market. Hanania separates economic outcomes from other judgments: he sees possible benefits from a permissive AI policy while criticizing tariffs, nationalism and political behavior.

Their discussion of political cultures becomes more speculative as they compare social norms among liberals and conservatives. These are their impressions and generalizations, offered in conversation rather than supported findings.

Cowen asks where Hanania’s work might go after his book on populism. Hanania says his interests have changed across books on foreign policy, civil-rights law and populism, and he may try fiction.

Hanania sees books as a way to consolidate several years of ideas scattered across articles and posts, as well as a reason for public discussion. He is less certain how books compare with other forms as a way to produce knowledge.

Finally, Hanania says he wants to spend time learning quantum physics and its possible philosophical implications, even if he ultimately struggles with it. Cowen thanks him and closes the conversation.