Democracy's Discontent: Unraveling Neoliberalism and Elite Power | Michael Sandel | TMR

Emma hosts Michael Sandel, professor of Government Theory at Harvard University, to discuss his book Democracy’s Discontent: A New Edition for Our Perilous Times.

Michael Sandel dives right into why he decided to update his 1996 work “Democracy’s Discontent,” looking back at that period as simultaneously the apex of faith in the neoliberal Washington consensus and one that saw the first tricklings of unraveling community infrastructure, the diminishment of citizens’ representation, and general feelings of insecurity which were all affirmed with the 2008 financial crisis. Picking up in the wake of the crisis, Professor Sandel explores how the elite decided to put the system back together again, rather than actually rethinking the role of finance in the economy, sparking bipartisan anger that birthed two movements: a new socialist movement on the left, and the tea party movement on the right. Parsing deeper through this anger. Sandel and Emma discuss the explicit rejection of elites’ credentialism and meritocratic hubris, tackling what these concepts entail, how they birthed the populist nominations of Bernie Sanders and Donald J. Trump, and why they so contributed to growing feelings of alienation during the first two decades of the 21st Century. Next, Michael walks through a distinction between two conceptions of freedom, one grounded in consumerism and the other in civic ideals, exploring how the emphasis on the former has bolstered democracy’s discontent, while the latter offers us a route out of it, before they wrap up the interview by exploring what a reorganizing of our economy towards civic ideals would entail, and why universal service programs might (MIGHT) be an answer.

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