#232 — Inequality and Revolution

Making Sense with Sam Harris

Waking Up with Sam Harris

Samharris, Currentevents, Politics, Ethics, Religion, Neuroscience, Science, Society & Culture, Philosophy

4.6 • 29.1K Ratings

🗓️ 27 January 2021

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode of the podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Jack Goldstone about the rise in social inequality and political instability in the United States. They discuss how wealth is deployed, the loss of social mobility, comparative judgments of well-being, cosmopolitanism and the isolation of the rich, decreased life expectancy, taxation, the need for government to solve problems, success and social obligation, the causes of revolution, universal basic income (UBI), and other topics.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Making Sense podcast.
0:08.0	This is Sam Harris.
0:10.8	Just a note to say that if you're hearing this, you are not currently on our subscriber
0:14.3	feed and will only be hearing partial episodes of the podcast.
0:17.7	If you'd like access to full episodes, you'll need to subscribe at samherris.org.
0:23.3	There you'll find our private RSS feed to add to your favorite pod catcher, along with
0:27.5	other subscriber-only content.
0:30.6	And as always, I never want money to be the reason why someone can't listen to the podcast.
0:35.1	So if you can't afford a subscription, there's an option at samherris.org to request a free
0:39.4	account.
0:40.4	And we grant 100% of those requests, no questions asked.
0:47.1	Okay.
0:48.1	Well, today I'm speaking with Jack Goldstone.
0:52.6	Jack is a sociologist and a professor of public policy at George Mason University.
0:59.2	And he's one of the world experts on revolutions and the social and political and economic
1:06.1	variables that produce them.
1:09.6	He focuses a lot on economic growth in a global economy and on the effects of population
1:15.2	change on economic growth and how all this feeds into the causes and outcomes of revolutions.
1:22.9	And I must say I was very impressed with how clearly he frames these issues.
1:28.9	And we talk about many of the relevant variables here, inequality of various kinds, wealth
1:34.3	inequality included, failures of social mobility, changes we might make to the tax code, new
1:41.7	norms around social responsibility that we clearly need.
	...

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