The Gray Area with Sean Illing27 Touko 2019

Why good people are easily corrupted (with Lawrence Lessig)

I’ve been learning from, and arguing with, Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig for a decade now. We have a long-running debate over whether money or polarization is the root cause of our political ills. But our debate works because we share a crucial belief: Bad institutions overwhelm good individuals. In his latest book, America, Compromised, Lessig is doing something ambitious: He’s offering a new definition of institutional corruption, then showing how it plays out in politics, academia, the media, Wall Street, and the legal system. This is a definition of corruption that doesn’t require any individual to be corrupt. But it’s a definition that, if you accept it, suggests much of our society has been corrupted. Here, Lessig and I discuss what corruption is, how to understand an institution’s purpose, whether capitalism is itself corrupting, our upcoming books about the media, how small donors polarize politics, Lessig’s critique of democracy, why good people are particularly susceptible to institutional corruption, whether we should ban private money in politics, and ways to reinvent representative democracy. So, you know, nothing too big or heady. Book recommendations: The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalismby Edward E. Baptist Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalization of Democracy by Francis Fukuyama The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Powerby Shoshana Zuboff Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tämä jakso on lisätty Podme-palveluun avoimen RSS-syötteen kautta eikä se ole Podmen omaa tuotantoa. Siksi jakso saattaa sisältää mainontaa.

Jaksot(766)

The screens between us

What is the first thing that you touch in the morning? What about the last thing you touch before you go to sleep? For many of us, it’s our phone. Digital devices are with us constantly, often putting...

13 Tammi 202545min

The importance of failure

At the beginning of the new year, many of us make pledges to change ourselves. We want to work out more. Or read more. Or cook more. Within a few months, some of us will have succeeded but many of us ...

6 Tammi 202546min

What to do with your sadness, pain, and grief

How can we find happiness? That's an old question. Since the beginning of philosophy people have been wondering what makes us happy and how to get more of it. But if you're a real person living in the...

23 Joulu 202456min

What do animals feel?

Can you ever really know what’s going on inside the mind of another creature? In some cases, like other humans, or dogs and cats, we might be able to guess with a bit of confidence. But what about oct...

16 Joulu 202448min

Are men okay?

This week, host Sean Illing gets personal when he asks professor and podcast host Scott Galloway: What’s going on with men? There’s a growing body of evidence that men are falling behind in education,...

9 Joulu 202448min

How to feel alive

The sheer feeling of aliveness. We all know what that is, even though it comes in many different forms. Maybe it’s going for a long run at night. Or free-climbing a mountain. Or an intense meditation ...

2 Joulu 202453min

The antidote to climate anxiety

In this episode, host Sean Illing speaks with marine biologist Ayana Elizabeth Johnson about her book What If We Get It Right? Visions of Climate Futures. Johnson approaches climate change with inform...

25 Marras 202451min

America’s reactionary moment

What just happened? It’s been almost two weeks since the presidential election, and many Americans are still grappling with the result. The political reckoning will probably last for months, if not ye...

18 Marras 20241h 14min