278 | Michael Sandel on the Case Against Meritocracy

September 24, 2020 by Catherine Carr in politics

David and Helen talk to the philosopher Michael Sandel about the
damage that the idea of rewarding people on merit has done to education,
democracy and public life. Why is it wrong to try to match the best students to the best universities? What is credentialism and how has it warped the way work is rewarded? Whatever happened to the idea of the common good? Plus we discuss America's sense of itself as God's chosen nation in the age of Obama and Trump.

139 | Adam Tooze on Europe

January 19, 2019 by Catherine Carr

A special extra episode for this week with Adam Tooze, author of Crashed and one of our most popular previous guests. He takes us through the wider political and economic context for Britain's Brexit crisis, from Italy to France to Germany, and beyond to China and the US. Plus he explains why Brexit is one of the great calamities of his lifetime.

129 | Democracy For Young People

December 05, 2018 by Catherine Carr in politics

As a follow-up to last year's How Democracy Ends lecture, David talks about how divisions between young and old are threatening representative democracy. He traces the story from Ancient Greece to Brexit and beyond, and asks how the age divide connects to the education divide in contemporary politics. Plus he offers some radical suggestions for what we might do about it.