The Gray Area with Sean Illing27 Mai 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

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Episoder(766)

Malcolm Gladwell on the danger of joining consensus opinions

Malcolm Gladwell needs no introduction (though if you didn't know the famed author has launched a podcast, you should — it's called Revisionist History, and it's great.).Gladwell's work has become so ...

23 Aug 20161h 33min

Grant Gordon on studying the world's worst conflicts

Grant Gordon is a political scientist and policymaker who specializes in humanitarian intervention. He’s a fellow at the Stanford Center on International Conflict and Negotiation, and has worked on hu...

16 Aug 20161h 29min

Melissa Bell on starting Vox, managing media, and connecting newsrooms

I first started working with Melissa Bell at the Washington Post. I was trying to launch a new product — Wonkblog — and I needed some design work done. Melissa wasn't a designer. She wasn't a coder. S...

9 Aug 20161h 23min

Atul Gawande on surgery, writing, Obamacare, and indie music

I've wanted to do this interview for a long, long time.Atul Gawande is a surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He's a professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard Scho...

2 Aug 20161h 37min

Trevor Noah, host of The Daily Show

This is a serious conversation with a very funny man.Trevor Noah is the host of Comedy Central's the Daily Show. He's also a stand-up comic who grew up in apartheid South Africa, the son of a black mo...

26 Jul 20161h 16min

Conservative intellectual Yuval Levin on how the Republican Party lost its way

Yuval Levin has been called "the most influential conservative intellectual of the Obama era," and the moniker fits. As editor of National Affairs — in my opinion, the best policy journal going on the...

19 Jul 20161h 17min

Hillary Clinton. Yes, that Hillary Clinton.

My interview this week is with Hillary Clinton. You may have heard of her.I won't bore you with Clinton's bio. Instead, I want to say a few words about what this interview is, as it's a bit different ...

12 Jul 201647min

Patrick Brown on plant-meat that bleeds and the science of flavor

Not long ago, I had the chance to eat a burger from a company called Impossible Foods. The burger was delicious. It was juicy, savory, and bloody. Oh, and it was made from plants.Yes, they've created ...

5 Jul 201645min