Lea Ypi talks capitalism and freedom

Life and Art from FT Weekend

Forhecz Topher

Tv & Film, Arts, Society & Culture

4.6 • 601 Ratings

🗓️ 19 February 2022

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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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 [email protected]. 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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Original music by Metaphor Music. Mixing and sound design is by Breen Turner.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Imagine you had spent a good chunk of your 20s and 30s as a journalist chasing the biggest
0:05.7	stories on the planet. Not just any stories, but the ones where good and evil come face-to-face.
0:13.0	Totalitarian rule versus freedom-loving citizens. Equal opportunity versus state-sanctioned apartheid.
0:20.5	And the amazing thing is good seemed to triumph.
0:23.5	There was this whole sort of extraordinary sort of teleology of hope, really.
0:26.8	You've got to think that there was the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989,
0:30.7	the collapse of the Soviet Union in late 91.
0:33.2	Then 1994, you had the end of apartheid.
0:35.4	These astonishing things that were just happening in the world.
0:39.5	You know, the words are some awful things happening, including appallingly the Rwandan genocide,
0:43.6	which I did end up covering.
0:45.8	But fundamentally, there was a sense that the world was moving in a hopeful direction.
0:51.2	That's Alec Russell. He's editor of FT Weekend.
0:57.2	As in all of FT Weekend. Weekend. The magazine,
1:02.8	Life and Arts, How to Spend It, and this podcast. Alex spent the beginning of his career writing about the collapse of communism. He showed up in Romania in 1990, just days after the
1:08.8	country's communist dictator Nikolai Chochescu was executed.
1:12.8	And he watched Romania start to rebuild itself as a new, free country.
1:17.8	About three years after that, he went to South Africa.
1:21.1	Recently, Alex's been thinking a lot about Romania and its post-communist neighbors.
1:26.7	There's all of the news coming out of Ukraine, of course.
1:29.8	But also, he read this book.
1:31.9	It's called Free, by Leah Epe.
	...

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