Show Notes
Moral debate has been replaced by outrage — political philosopher Michael Sandel makes the case for a different kind of public life. | Subscribe to Futurology! https://linkin.bio/futurology/
We built a society around the idea that the “best” should rise to the top. If you work hard and win the race, you deserve your success. Michael Sandel – the Harvard philosopher and 2025 Berggruen Prize Laureate – argues that this faith has warped public life, turning economic inequality into moral judgment and teaching millions to hear the same message behind every setback: if you didn’t make it, it’s your fault.
In this episode, Sandel says the rise of MAGA is the predictable result of treating markets as the measure of value and credentials as the measure of worth. Repair, he suggests, means rebuilding the public sphere by redesigning the system, not just swapping out one elite for another. To do so, we must redesign our politics before advanced technology locks grievance in place.
Subscribe to the Berggruen Institute on YouTube to be the first to listen to new Futurology episodes:
https://www.youtube.com/@Berggrueninst
Catch up on the Futurology conversation with full episodes on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyYCSKWs8iYgjg-mhu-EuhTrG0-adrb0c
Apple Podcasts
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/futurology/id1821718921
Spotify
Mentioned in this Episode:
Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? — Michael J. Sandel (Book, 2009)
What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets — Michael J. Sandel (Book, 2012)
The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good? — Michael J. Sandel (Book, 2020)
Liberalism and the Limits of Justice — Michael J. Sandel (Book, 1982)
Democracy’s Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy — Michael J. Sandel (Book, 1996)
The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century — Thomas L. Friedman (Book, 2005) Where to find Michael Sandel:
Official website
Harvard Law School profile
Show ideas and feedback? Email:
Learn more about the Berggruen Institute
Follow Futurology!
Instagram: / futurologypod
Twitter/X: / futurologypod
Tiktok: / futurologypod
Facebook: / berggrueninst
LinkedIn: / berggrueninst
Bluesky: / futurologypod
Credits
Executive Producers: Nicolas Berggruen, Nathan Gardels, Nils Gilman, Dawn Nakagawa, & Jason Hoch
Producers: Grant Slater, Alex Gardels, & Nathalia Ramos
Associate Producer: Elissa Mardiney
Theme Music: Marcus Bagala
Audio Engineer: Aaron Bastinelli & Kyle Scott Wilson
Futurology is a production of Studio B and Wavland for the Berggruen Institute in Los Angeles, California.
More from Futurology
Hypocrisy, the old line goes, is the tribute vice pays to virtue. For eighty years, the powerful at least bothered to pay it, citing human rights, national security, and democracy as reasons for starting wars and undercutting liberties. Now the veneers have been stripped, and the next generation is not accepting business as usual.
Machines are starting to act like humans. Does that mean they’re conscious? The problem is we haven’t been able to prove how or why humans are conscious yet either. So why would we be able to offer any answers about AI?
Democracy counts people, not plants. Humans are only a sliver of life on this planet, but today, we're the only ones who get a vote. What if we gave rights to rivers and standing to trees?
Somewhere around the Enlightenment we decided that thinking was what made us human. We built our schools, careers, and sense of worth at the altar of intelligence. Now machines are passing us on that rubric, which leaves two possibilities: we were replaceable all along, or we picked the wrong standard to live by.
Relying on machines to coordinate our lives was just one step toward decentering humanity’s role in the world. Flights, banking, trade, food production... But as we start merging our actual decision-making with digital entities, exactly which pieces of humanity are we leaving behind? And how might we bring those pieces back?