Independence Jay? Inflation and attacks on the Fed

Summary

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Economist Podcasts – Intelligence

Episode: "Independence Jay? Inflation and attacks on the Fed"

Date: January 14, 2026
Host: Jason Palmer
Guests: Archie Hall (U.S. Economics Editor), John Peat (Associate Editor & Brexit Editor), Catherine Nixie (Culture Correspondent)

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Episode Overview

This episode delves into:

• The newest inflation data in the U.S. and mounting political pressure on Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, including unprecedented legal threats.
• The lasting economic impact of Brexit, six years after the UK's formal exit from the European Union.
• A wry analysis of the self-help book industry's evolution and what it reveals about society's anxieties.

The episode is structured around three core discussions, skipping intro/outros and advertisements.

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1. U.S. Inflation, the Federal Reserve, and Political Pressure

Main Theme

The Federal Reserve finds itself under intensifying political attack, notably from President Donald Trump. The Fed is simultaneously navigating stubbornly stalled inflation and new threats to its institutional independence—now under the cloud of a Department of Justice investigation of its chairman, Jerome Powell.

Key Points and Insights

• Stubborn Inflation

  • Recent data shows U.S. annual inflation at 2.7%, matching expectations but not yet hitting the Fed’s 2% target.
  • "That very last bit, squeezing it all the way back to two, has proven a good bit more difficult than it may have initially seemed." — Archie Hall (04:31)
  • Tariffs and their pass-through effects continue to buoy goods inflation, making the final reduction hardest.

• Policy Dilemma:

  • The Fed faces a "balancing act" between slightly-elevated inflation and a softening labor market.
  • “Chair Powell… has called this curious balance where both legs of the Fed's mandate are slightly pulling it in different directions.” — Archie Hall (05:57)

Notable Quotes & Moments

• On the Threat to Fed Independence:

  • “This new threat is not about my testimony last June or about the renovation of the Federal Reserve buildings. The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the president.” — Archie Hall quoting Jerome Powell’s statement (03:56)

• On Political Escalation:

  • “We got a video statement from Jerome Powell saying in no uncertain terms that this was not a matter of building renovation, that this was about interest rates, and this was specifically about the President's desire to push interest rates lower than would make sense, effectively countervailing the independence of the Fed.” — Archie Hall (06:49)

• Market Response:

  • A small dip in stocks and a sharp rise in precious metals followed the DOJ news, but bond yields remained stable.
  • “For whatever reason… some combination… seems to be preventing markets from really appreciating, throwing a hissy fit in the way… in any other kind of normal situation where you have such direct and overt interference potential.” — Archie Hall (08:16)

Timestamps for Segments

• Introduction to Inflation/Fed (01:57–04:21)
• Fed’s Inflation Challenge (04:21–05:09)
• Policy Balancing Act (05:09–06:13)
• Political Pressure and DOJ Investigation (06:13–07:34)
• Market Reaction (07:34–08:44)
• Broader Threats & Hypotheticals (08:44–11:56)

Memorable Moment

• Discussing potential long-term risks to democracy and monetary stability:
  • “If Donald Trump decided to in some way assert total control over the Fed, yank interest rates all the way down, induce inflationary boom that devalues the US dollar, there's some pretty scary hypotheticals you can get to.” — Archie Hall (10:43)

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2. Six Years After Brexit: Economic Reckoning and Reset

Main Theme

Six years on from Brexit’s completion, the Economist team reviews the hard numbers and shifting politics of the UK’s separation from the EU. The discussion centers on economic consequences, the modest scope of current attempts to rebuild ties, and public attitudes.

Key Points and Insights

• Economic Impact Summed Up

  • Economic studies largely confirm pre-referendum predictions: growth has slowed, investment fell, and goods exports declined.
  • “If you decide to leave your closest market and your closest allies and to erect new barriers to trade, your economy is going to suffer.” — John Peat (15:47)
  • The estimated GDP loss ranges from 4% (consensus) up to 6-8% in some studies. (16:14)
  • City of London and services fared better than predicted, but not as well as if the UK had stayed in the EU.

• Efforts to Improve Relations

  • The new Labour government’s “reset” strategy includes aligning with some single-market rules and youth mobility, but red lines remain on single market, customs union, and free movement.
  • “Most of those suggestions … add up to quite small beer. … A boost to the economy of no more than about 0.3%, which is not very much when you think that Brexit may have cost the economy 4%.” — John Peat (18:13)

• EU’s Attitude: Disinterest Unless UK Offers More

  • EU has “moved on,” focused on other priorities; further closeness would require UK acceptance of EU rules and payment into the EU budget.

• Public Opinion in Britain

  • Majority believes Brexit was a mistake; younger people especially support closer ties.
  • “It's particularly telling that young people are much keener on the idea of have closer links with the European Union than old people… but that's very much not the same as saying we therefore want to reopen the whole subject and have another referendum.” — John Peat (20:37)

Timestamps for Segments

• Brexit in Retrospect—Economic Impact (14:26–17:27)
• The "Reset" of Relations/Labour’s Position (17:27–19:11)
• EU Response and Public Opinion (19:11–22:35)

Memorable Quotes

• “The process of getting closer to the European Union will take a long time and it may not be quite as big a deal as some people are hoping.” — John Peat (22:34)

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3. Self-Help Books: What Do They Reveal About Us?

Main Theme

A satirical review of the self-help book phenomenon, exploring their popularity, evolution, and the underlying societal anxieties they betray.

Key Points and Insights

• Cultural Satire:

  • Recent animal-parable self-help books (“The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, the Horse and the Storm”) top charts, praised as heartwarming but seen as superficial.
  • “Its insights are supposedly aimed at children, yet adored by adults.” — Catherine Nixie (23:16)

• A Mirror of Social Anxiety:

  • Self-help books have evolved from Victorian moralizing to visualization (Think and Grow Rich), to hyper-optimization (Atomic Habits), reflecting societal concerns across eras.
  • “Read through a century of self help and you are offered an archaeology of anxiety.” — Catherine Nixie (24:14)

• Doubt About Their Effectiveness:

  • Evidence on efficacy is thin; the real benefit may be more in distraction from the self than self-optimization.
  • “There is much better evidence for what actually helps people. And most of these things involve what the philosopher Iris Murdoch called unselfing. In other words, forgetting about yourself.” — Catherine Nixie (26:23)

• Playfully Ironic Conclusion:

  • “Perhaps this January you shouldn't read a self help book, you should read an unself help book instead.” — Catherine Nixie (27:20)

Timestamps for Segment

• Self-Help Book Segment (22:54–27:23)

Notable Quotes

• “The seven Deadly Sins may lead to seven figure sales.” — Catherine Nixie (25:03)
• “Its tone is like that of Winnie the Pooh, but without the grit and the darkness.” — Catherine Nixie (24:14)

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Summary Table: Key Segments and Timestamps

| Segment | Main Discussion / Insight | Notable Quote / Moment | Timestamp | |-----------------------------------------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------|-------------------------------------------------|---------------| | U.S. Inflation & Fed Under Pressure | Stalled inflation, DOJ probe, political risks to independence | “This… is a consequence of the Fed setting rates…” (Powell) | 03:56–11:56 | | Six Years On: Brexit's Economic Reckoning | Measured economic cost, limited reset with EU, shifting public views | “If you decide to leave your closest market…” (Peat) | 14:26–22:37 | | Self-Help Books as Cultural Barometer | Bestsellers as a symptom of anxiety, criticisms, real “unselfing” help | “Perhaps this January you shouldn't read a self help book, you should read an unself help book instead.” (Nixie) | 22:54–27:23 |

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Tone & Style

• Jason Palmer: Calm, clear, lightly ironic.
• Archie Hall: Analytical, precise, urgent when discussing hypothetical threats.
• John Peat: Measured, candid, reflective, with some dry wit.
• Catherine Nixie: Witty, satirical, erudite.

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For Listeners Who Haven't Tuned In

This is an episode that sharply, yet accessibly, addresses major economic and social crossroads: the uneasy tension between monetary independence and political power in the U.S.; the ongoing consequences (and societal divides) left by Brexit; and a lighter, but insightful, look at how the self-help boom is both a symptom and a product of modern anxieties. Clear-eyed analysis is coupled with moments of humor and memorable, quotable observations from The Economist’s correspondents.

Transcript

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[John Peat]

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[Jason Palmer]

The Economist. Hello and welcome to the Intelligence from the Economist. I'm your host Jason Palmer. Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. It's been six years since the real final official divorce between Britain and the eu. Time to take stock then of the economic effects of the breakup and consider the benefits of again becoming maybe a bit more than just friends. And we take a look at self help books down the ages. They are an ever evolving indicator not of what people want to become, but of what they are. First up, though, There aren't too many people who excitedly await inflation data from America's number crunchers and the ones that came out yesterday were pretty short on drama. 2.7% year on year was the headline Number bang on what was predicted and the same as the month before. One keen watcher will have been President Donald Trump, who routinely uses the numbers as just another cudgel to beat Jerome Powell, chair of the Federal Reserve. Mr. Trump wants interest rate cuts, like all the time. Mr. Powell wants to do his job mainly keeping inflation down without crimping the economy, which has not meant cuts all the time. And in what I guess could just maybe be a coincidence, Mr. Powell recently became the subject of a Department of justice investigation. This is grave stuff. And the normally reticent Mr. Powell took the extraordinary step of saying so on camera.

[Archie Hall]

This new threat is not about my testimony last June or about the renovation of the Federal Reserve buildings. The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the president.

[Jason Palmer]

So what is the Fed doing and how much can it hope to keep a free hand in what it does?

[Archie Hall]

The broader story on inflation is that it's most of the way back down to the Federal Reserve's 2% target.

[Jason Palmer]

Archie hall is our U.S. economics editor.

[Archie Hall]

But that very last bit, squeezing it all the way back to two has proven a good bit more difficult than it may have initially seemed. And so we're now looking at annual inflation numbers of around 2.7 on the headline numbers, 2.6 on the core numbers. That very last bit, that sort of 2% to 3% range is pretty much where inflation's lingered for a while. And some of that story of tariffs related, certainly the pass through of the tariffs to goods, inflation in particular, has kept that number up. But also in general across the inflation basket, it does seem like that very, very last squeeze is proving particularly hard to make happen.

[Jason Palmer]

So quite AAPART from what Mr. Trump might insist upon, what do you suppose the Federal Reserve should be doing in light of the difficulty in squeezing the last bit out?

[Archie Hall]

It's a bit of a balancing act, as the Federal Reserve has acknowledged. On the one hand, you do have inflation that is a little bit too high for comfort. That on its own would point towards wanting to keep monetary policy a bit restrictive. So keeping interest rates a little bit higher, trying to squeeze a little bit of the air out of the economy. On the other hand, what makes this a bit of a difficult time, even aside from the political pressures, is that the labor market, the other side of the Federal Reserve's so called dual mandate, is looking a little bit wobbly. People have, I think, overstated the weakness somewhat. There was a lot of noise in the numbers because some of the immigration crackdown over the course of the past year, which really, really pulled down the growth rate of population, distorted things. But it does seem like, even if you look through that, the unemployment rate has crept up a little bit. We're seeing still, even accounting for immigration, a slightly slower rate of job creation than be entirely comfortable. Chair Powell of the Fed has called this curious balance where both legs of the Fed's mandate are slightly pulling it in different directions. The projections of most Fed members are for a ton, tiny bit more cutting, but really not very much. But obviously that's very different from the President's preferences.

[Jason Palmer]

Well, and whatever the job is, it's made harder, in fact, by this now criminal probe into Mr. Powell.

[Archie Hall]

What's been pretty striking is that throughout pretty much the past year, where there's been attack after attack by the President on the Fed, both rhetorically and also attempts to fire a Fed governor and much else besides, the strategy the Fed seems to have taken is to basically be silent and effectively hope his attention moves elsewhere. And what's really notable about this moment now is that, finally, this Department of Justice investigation, this dispute over the renovation costs of the Fed, and the subpoenas that were issued late last week have prompted the Fed to actually stand up and really, for the first time, sharply rebuke the President. So we got a video statement from Jerome Powell saying in no uncertain terms that this was not a matter of building renovation, that this was about interest rates, and this was specifically about the President's desire to push interest rates lower than would make sense, effectively countervailing the independence of the Fed. And so that was a very stark moment. And then what's strange and bizarre about this is that after that escalation by the Fed, we've effectively had radio silence from the President. He was called up by NBC News shortly after the Fed statement, and he effectively disavowed all knowledge of the DoJ probe and said if he wanted to put pressure on the Fed, this is not how he would do it. And so we're now in this slightly.

[Jason Palmer]

Strange limbo, and that much more pointed threat to the Fed's independence will have made markets around the world some kind of nervous. How have markets reacted?

[Archie Hall]

It's sort of strange. There's not really been a sharp market reaction. So immediately as the news broke, there was a little bit of a move down in stocks. There was a very sharp move up in precious metals, which is a feature of what people often call the debasement trade. So the notion that if we are going to have no Federal Reserve independence, giant deficits, and effectively the government's going to start inflating its way out of its problems, then you don't want to hold US Dollars, you'd much rather hold something real and solid like gold or silver or whatever it is. So there was a bit of that by the market, but bond yields didn't spike up. And this is a bit cloudy because the president did walk back, as I mentioned, pretty soon after the news came out. So it's not like Liberation Day, where president floated a giant tariff regime. There was a vast market backlash, and then there was at least a partial walk back the next week. But so far, certainly it does seem that for whatever reason, partly because that presidential walk back, partly because of what people often call the taco trade that Trump always chickens out, but some combination of those factors seems to be preventing markets from really appreciating, throwing a hissy fit in the way he might have expected would have happened in any other kind of normal situation where you have such direct and overt interference potential. Bank independence by a president.

[Jason Palmer]

Is this, do you think, at least in part, not an attack directly on Mr. Powell, but a signal to whoever's going to take his place he won't be around forever after all.

[Archie Hall]

That's pretty credible. I mean, certainly, look, if you're Donald Trump, Jerome Powell's out in a matter of months. And so the notion that you pick a giant fight that riles financial markets and annoys a number of lawmakers on your own side, merely in order to pressure someone who's not going to be running the Federal Reserve by the middle of the year, seems pretty peculiar. And certainly some of this may well be either the president being impulsive or impulsive behaviours, given he's disavowed some knowledge of this by people kind of below him in the administration. But another way to read this, and something that definitely accords with the broader thrust of how this administration's approached the Federal Reserve, is as yet another ratcheting up of the pressure on the institution across the board and reasserting the notion that the White House will step in and will really, really push people if they think the Fed is misbehaving. And the attempt to fire the Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, is another example of that. And as you look forward, we don't yet know who is likely to succeed Chair Powell, but it's going to be someone chosen by the president. So therefore, almost certainly someone who is going to be a lot closer to the president. Than Powell was. And of course, it's not just about the share. It's also about all the other people on the Open Markets Committee who actually collectively vote on and decide interest rates, all of whom in general have a lot more job than almost anyone else in the government in terms of their insulation from interference by the President. But of course, all of these moves will be hanging over all of these people. And as that pressure lines up, we could, well, and certainly this is not guaranteed, it's probably not even likely, the markets certainly aren't pricing it in. But it's certainly plausible that we end up in a world where as this pressure ratchets up, we really get quite overt action by the White House to get not just the chair, but even other members of the board to be compliant. We've not seen that yet, but that's sort of the direction of travel. If this amping up of pressure continues.

[Jason Palmer]

But if that's the direction of travel, then the end of the road is a completely dominated central bank and you end up in a situation like, I don't know, in the extreme case, someplace like Turkey.

[Archie Hall]

Yeah, it's definitely a pretty troubling hypothetical. Those sorts of cases, I mean, Turkey being one, Argentina being another. Cases where you really do have total control by the central government and debt ridden fiscal authority of central banking lead you some pretty scary places. So certainly if Donald Trump decided to in some way assert total control over the Fed, yank interest rates all the way down, induce inflationary boom that devalues the US dollar, there's some pretty scary hypotheticals you can get to. And of course, the difference between the US and somewhere like Turkey is just how globally important the US is, how globally important the dollar is, and all the ramifications of that. Even as that's a useful hypothetical to caution against any comfort and calm about the idea that central bank independence could be seriously eroded, it's also worth appreciating how long the road is away from that. Even at this moment, Trump has seemingly stepped back slightly. There are still awful lot of roadblocks, both literal, legal, institutional, and also in terms of market response, the ability of congressional Senate Republicans, who are not terribly happy about this Powell news by the looks of it, to push back. They stand in the way between the US and that scenario, if that's even what the President wants, which is, despite all his shouts and complaints on true social, not entirely clear either.

[Jason Palmer]

Archie, thanks very much for your time.

[Archie Hall]

Thank you.

[Jason Palmer]

On our subscriber only sister show Money Talks, my colleagues are going big on these attacks on the Fed and how they're kicking dangerously at the foundations of the global monetary order. Find Money talks tomorrow and every Thursday wherever fine podcasts are sold and traded.

[BetterHelp Advertiser]

This is an ad by BetterHelp.

[John Peat]

Did I talk too much? Can't I just let it go? I wish.

[BetterHelp Advertiser]

Take a breath. You're not alone. Let's talk about what's going on. Counseling helps you sort through the noise with qualified professionals, and online therapy makes it convenient. See if it's for you. Visit betterhelp.com randompodcast for 10% off your first month of online therapy and let life feel better.

[Momentous Advertiser]

January is when we recommit to the habits that support our health and wellbeing. And naturally we start looking at what can support those goals, including supplements. The supplement industry is a low trust category. It's lightly regulated, products are easy to make, and companies don't even have to list everything on their label. That's exactly why I choose Momentus. They've become the high trust brand in a low trust category. They weren't satisfied with the industry standard, so they built the Momentus standard. Their commitment to doing things the right way, not the easy way. What truly sets Momentus apart is their testing and transparency. Every product is independently certified by NSF for sport, meaning it's tested for contaminants, heavy metals, banned substances, and verified for label accuracy. So you always know exactly what you're putting in your body. And if a product doesn't meet their standard, it never hits the shelves. In a space where trust is rare, Momentous is redefining what trust looks like. And I've genuinely felt the difference using their protein and creatine every day. Right now, Momentous is offering our listeners up to 35% off your first order with promo code PODCAST. Head to livemomentous.com and use promo code PODCAST for up to 35 percent off your first order. That's livemomentous.com promo code PODCAST.

[Jason Palmer]

Longtime readers of the Economist will remember that we were against Britain's exit from the European Union. Union an egregious act of self harm. We reckoned claims of reversing a torrent of money flowing to the EU were overblown. We wrote so too the narrative of reclaiming sovereignty. Well, not enough people reading the economist back in 2016. I guess the British people have spoken.

[John Peat]

And the answer is we're out.

[Jason Palmer]

As divorces go, this one turned out messy because the marriage was was complicated.

[Catherine Nixie]

Brexit means Brexit.

[John Peat]

This is the second deal and the fourth vote. Three and a half years after the nation voted for Brexit.

[Jason Palmer]

But then finally it was done in January 2020.

[John Peat]

This is an amazing moment for this country. We have our freedom in our hands and it is up to us to make the most of it.

[Jason Palmer]

So let's have a little lookie. Six years on from that amazing moment, the numbers are a bit complicated because of that whole global pandemic thing, but the shape of the curve is clear. And I promise that what follows will not include the phrase we told you so.

[John Peat]

I think almost all studies that have appeared in recent years match the studies that were made even before the referendum. Which is to say, if you decide to leave your closest market and your closest allies and to erect new barriers to trade, your economy is going to suffer.

[Jason Palmer]

John Peat is an associate editor at the Economist and was for all of those years and I guess still is our Brexit editor.

[John Peat]

And I think all of the evidence is that the British economy has suffered as a result of Brexit. The argument is about how big is that effect? And most of the recent studies suggest that the effect may be slightly bigger than people even expected. In 2016, the cost of the British economy could be as high as 6 to 8% according to some estimates, but a general consensus is anyway it could be at least around 4%. Not the end of the world, but not very helpful to an already very slow growing economy.

[Jason Palmer]

Well, the not the end of the world part, I suppose is worth examining. In what ways has it not turned out to be as bad as the doomiest doomsayers suggested?

[John Peat]

I think some people claimed that Brexit would be a disaster for the City of London. Brexit would do serious damage to British services exports, that somehow or other the UK would fall behind the rest of Europe. And actually the City of London, still the biggest financial centre in Europe. Services exports have generally held up well and actually Britain is still somewhere in the middle in terms of its position in the European Growth League, but that is worse than it was before 2016. So the damage is there, but it hasn't destroyed a reasonable economy.

[Jason Palmer]

So in talking about the damage that has been done, what can we now put a finger on?

[John Peat]

I think you can say that business investment has fallen significantly in the last few years by about 10% compared with before the vote. Manufacturing exports, particularly generally exports of goods, down perhaps 15% compared with pre pandemic levels. And services exports have risen, but. But most estimates say they would have risen even more had Britain not left the European Union.

[Jason Palmer]

The Labour government, the one currently in Power has been saying that it wants to patch things up in various ways with the EU in a bid to kind of get back some of the benefits of the eu. Talk me through that. What closer ties are realistic to expect at this stage?

[John Peat]

The issue of how much closer the relationship with the EU could become is a very, very difficult one. I mean, the Labour government that was elected in May 2024 was pretty cautious to begin with. The manife was elected on said no to the customs union, no to the single market and no to free movement of people. Those red lines constrain quite heavily what you can do to improve relations with the European Union. But particularly in the last two or three months, the Labour government is starting to say, look, we really need to improve our relationship. We're willing to align with single market rules, we'd like to improve farm trade, we are open to a freer exchange of young people. But most of those suggestions, it's sort of called a reset of the relationship with the European Union, add up to quite small beer. I mean, we're talking about a boost to the economy of no more than about 0.3%, which is not very much when you think that Brexit may have cost the economy a 4%.

[Jason Palmer]

And the question that's not addressed there is how much the EU wants to extend a hand. What's in it for them? Are they interested in these closer ties?

[John Peat]

I think the issue of whether the European Union really has a lot of interest in improving relations with the UK is a tricky one. I mean, some people, particularly in Brussels and Paris, have been saying, look, when the Labour government came in in 2024, we might have been interested in talking to them about improving the relationship, possibly even reversing the decision that you took to leave the European Union in the first place. But nowadays they tend to say, look, we've got lots of other problems, we have other priorities. We have to deal with Russia, we have to deal with Donald Trump. The UK is not a high priority. The current relationship works quite well for the eu. Even if it doesn't work so well for the uk, they will tend to say, look, if really want a much closer relationship, you're going to have to accept much more obligations, you're going to have to pay money into the European budget. You may have to accept much freer movement of people. And until you're willing to sign up to those obligations, we're not very interested in a lot of negotiation over details that we don't think will benefit us as much as it might benefit you.

[Jason Palmer]

And what about the British body politic? The polling has shown pretty clearly over the years a greater and greater share thinking that Brexit was a mistake. When confronted with these same questions again, the obligations to chip into the EU budget and freedom of movement and what have you, there is still going to be tension within British society about a lot of these questions.

[John Peat]

Yes, the evolution of public opinion in Britain is a fascinating subject. I mean, it is clear from all polls, including a poll that we conducted just before Christmas, that quite a substantial majority of people think Brexit was a mistake and they don't think Brexit has been good for them. They think actually immigration has gone up, not down, and that the economy has suffered. And it's particularly telling that young people are much keener on the idea of have closer links with the European Union than old people. And of course, over time, that means that the public opinion shifts in favour of being more closely involved with the eu. But that's very much not the same as saying we therefore want to reopen the whole subject and have another referendum and another long debate about whether we should be in or out. I think there is a general feeling, which you see from the polls and indeed from some of the companies who complain about the situation they're in, that a closer relationship with the European Union would be a good thing, that getting rid of some of the barriers to trade that exist now or making it easier to trade would be a good thing. And indeed that the political background of Donald Trump in America, Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine makes it much more logical that the UK should have closer ties to the European Union. So I think all those things do tend in that direction when it comes to specific issues. Would you accept more people coming in unrestricted? Would you accept much bigger payments to the Brussels budget? Would you accept more regulations out of Brussels that you may not have much say in? I think it becomes more difficult. And so that tension between a desire for closer relations with the European Union, but not necessarily being happy about the way to get those relations is going to play out over the next few years. And I think my conclusion from that is that the process of getting closer to the European Union will take a long time and it may not be quite as big a deal as some people are hoping.

[Jason Palmer]

John, thanks once again for joining us.

[John Peat]

Thank you.

[Catherine Nixie]

To understand modern self help books open, always remember the Boy, the Mole, the Fox, the Horse and the Storm, the sequel to the Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse, and no doubt the prequel to the Boy, the Mole, the Fox, the horse and the massive royalty check.

[Jason Palmer]

Catherine Nixie is a culture correspondent for the Economist.

[Catherine Nixie]

These animal parables topped Britain's bestseller charts this Christmas. They have sold many millions of copies, often a bad sign, and they have been described as heartwarming, usually a worse one. Open this volume and it does not disappoint. Its animal protagonists are fond of life, each other, and of saying things about love in a charming handwritten font. Its insights are supposedly aimed at children, yet adored by adults. The BBC recently did an adaptation. As one of its sentences explained, sometimes.

[John Peat]

Your mind plays tricks on you. It can tell you you're no good, that it's all hopeless. But I've discovered this you are loved and important.

[Catherine Nixie]

The overall tone is like that of Winnie the Pooh, but without the grit and the darkness. These days the self help genre is expansive. It includes picture books and poetry, as well as tips for climbing the career ladder. Yet it is rarely as instructive as it claims. Buy the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and it's far from certain that you too will become a highly effective person. Still, such books are often profitable and always telling. They provide invaluable guides for social historians because they tell us a little about who we want to be, broadly speaking, someone else, and even more about who we actually are. Read through A century of self help and you are offered an archaeology of anxiety. In a seminal Victorian volume called Self Help that's credited with starting the genre, Samuel Smiles told his readers that all they actually needed for success was will and the habit of attention. The book Think and Grow Rich, first published in 1937, taught depression era American readers that all they really needed to be wealthy was to visualize themselves already in possession of the money. While Atomic Habits, a recent Purcella, teaches time poor modern readers that they only need to follow the four laws of behavior, change and life will start to work again. More recent volumes show other traits. God, increasingly prominent in cultural life, has made his appearance in self help sections too. Reid Hoffman, the co founder of LinkedIn, once said that every social network does best when it taps into one of the seven deadly sins, like greed or pride. Run your eye down a list of best selling self help guides past titles like the Five Types of Wealth, wealth and Thinly Habits for Weight Loss. And it seems that they do too. The seven Deadly Sins may lead to seven figure sales. Vast numbers commit the sin of tiresome capitalization. Many commit the sin of grasps with no scale. Several commit the sin of using the ghastly word elevate. Others commit the unforgivable sin of poetry. Perhaps the biggest question raised by self help books is do they actually help selves? There is some slim evidence that they can, but the effects are small. There is much better evidence for what actually helps people. And most of these things involve what the philosopher Iris Murdoch called unselfing. In other words, forgetting about yourself. So playing with a pet or with children, going for a walk in nature, going to the theatre, socializing. Anything where yourself is not the main aim. So perhaps this January you shouldn't read a self help book, you should read an un self help book instead.

[Jason Palmer]

That's all for this episode of the Intelligence Intelligence. We'll see you back here tomorrow.