FT Weekend: Lea Ypi talks capitalism and freedom
FT News Briefing
Forhecz Topher
4.4 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 19 February 2022
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This weekend, FT Weekend editor Alec Russell brings us to Albania for Lunch with the FT. He sits down with writer Lea Ypi, whose memoir ‘Free’ documents her childhood there, both under communism and after its fall. Ypi, a political theorist at the London School of Economics asks: does capitalism make us free? Plus: European tech correspondent Madhumita Murgia explores how science fiction shapes our attitudes towards the future, and how that translates across different cultures.
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Do you want to read the Financial Times? We have special discounts for listeners here: http://ft.com/weekendpodcast
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Want to say hi? We love hearing from you. Email us at ftweekendpodcast@ft.com. We’re on Twitter @ftweekendpod, and Lilah is on Instagram and Twitter @lilahrap.
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Exciting news! Lea Ypi will be speaking at the first FT Weekend Festival to be hosted in the US. To attend (virtually or in person) go to http://ft.weekendfestival.com – with 10% off using the discount code FTFriends2022. It’s on Saturday May 7th at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.
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Links and mentions from the episode:
–Alec Russell’s Lunch with Lea Ypi: https://on.ft.com/3GHmi1J
–FT review of Lea Ypi’s memoir Free: https://www.ft.com/content/b5455f0f-33a9-480e-9027-6884cc25faa4
–Madhu on how science fiction shapes our attitudes to the future: https://www.ft.com/content/2f35be37-9da8-4cf6-89b2-8488b36c5a63
–Madhu recommends the book Exhalation by Ted Chiang
–Chen Qiufan’s latest book is caled AI2041: Ten Visions for ur Future, co-authored with Kai-Fu Lee
– This weekend’s Lunch with the FT, with Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas: https://www.ft.com/content/098ba985-1284-46c6-9abe-f626fa9e47f0
– Lunch with the Financial Times, edited by Lionel Barber, a selection of classic lunches: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/309/309448/lunch-with-the-ft/9780241400685.html
Alec is on Twitter at @AlecuRussell, and Madhu is at @madhumita29.
"Long Live Enver Hoxha!" copyright Believe Music and UMPG Publishing. "Astroboy" Copyright Tezuka Productions Co. Clip: AP Archive
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Transcript
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| 0:22.0 | Imagine you had spent a good chunk of your 20s and 30s as a journalist chasing the biggest stories on the planet. |
| 0:29.0 | Not just any stories, but the ones were good and evil come face to face. |
| 0:34.0 | Totalitarian rule versus freedom-loving citizens. Equal opportunity versus state-sanctioned apartheid. |
| 0:42.0 | And the amazing thing is good seem to triumph. |
| 0:45.0 | There was this whole sort of extraordinary sort of teleology of hope, really. |
| 0:48.0 | You've got to think that there was the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, |
| 0:52.0 | the collapse of the Soviet Union in late 1991. |
| 0:55.0 | In 1994, you had the end of apartheid. These stonishing things that were just happening in the world. |
| 1:01.0 | You know, the words some awful things happening, including appallingly the Rwandan genocide, which I did end up covering. |
| 1:07.0 | But fundamentally, there was a sense that the world was moving in a hopeful direction. |
| 1:12.0 | That's Alec Russell. He's editor of FT Weekend. |
| 1:16.0 | As in all of FT Weekend, the magazine, Life and Arts, how to spend it, and this podcast. |
| 1:22.0 | Alec spent the beginning of his career writing about the collapse of communism. |
| 1:27.0 | He showed up in Romania in 1990. Just days after the country's communist dictator, Nikolai Chachescu was executed. |
| 1:34.0 | And he watched Romania start to rebuild itself as a new, free country. |
| 1:39.0 | About three years after that, he went to South Africa. |
| 1:42.0 | Recently, Alec's been thinking a lot about Romania and its post-communist neighbors. |
| 1:48.0 | There's all of the news coming out of Ukraine, of course. |
| 1:51.0 | But also, he read this book. It's called Free by Leia EP. |
... |
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