The Perils of State Power

The Good Fight

Yascha Mounk

News

4.7 • 964 Ratings

🗓️ 1 May 2021

⏱️ 59 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

If the state fails to improve the lives of its citizens, then what is it for? James Scott, the Sterling professor of political science and anthropology at Yale University, believes that modern states tend to impose social structures that are antithetical to human flourishing. In his seminal works, like Seeing Like a State, he argues that we should give two cheers for anarchism: while states are here to stay, we should forever remain vigilant about the ways in which they do violence to individuals and societies. In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and James Scott discuss the case for anarchism, the need for a state, and the ongoing crisis in Myanmar. A written transcript of this conversation is available on persuasion.community To learn more about ways to support the democracy movement in Myanmar, please visit: https://www.mutualaidmyanmar.org/ Please do listen and spread the word about The Good Fight. If you have not yet signed up for our podcast, please do so now by following this link on your phone. Email: podcast@persuasion.community Website: http://www.persuasion.community Podcast production by John T. Williams and Rebecca Rashid Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Connect with us! Spotify | Apple | Google Twitter: @Yascha_Mounk & @joinpersuasion Youtube: Yascha Mounk LinkedIn: Persuasion Community Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Sign up to the economist for in-depth
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0:21.0	The Economist is Independent Journalism for Independent Thinking.
0:25.6	Go to Economist.com and get your first month free.
0:29.2	All of these states that we admire, mostly Western states, they have gotten where they've gotten by plundering the resources of the world for industrial growth in a way that seems
0:46.3	completely unsustainable so the collateral damage of Western economic growth on resources, the CO2 in the air, forms of bondage.
0:59.0	It's not a pretty picture of successful capitalist development.
1:04.0	And now the good fight with Yasha Monk.
1:07.0	The pandemic is where simple narratives go to die.
1:17.0	Many of the predictions that people made 13, 14 months ago have turned out to be wrong.
1:26.8	As I argued a few episodes ago,
1:29.4	the idea that the pandemic would prove
1:32.0	the efficacy of modern states and the failure of a global economic system
1:38.8	has turned out to be precisely wrong.
1:43.0	There was also another prediction that I and many other people made
1:47.0	earlier on in the pandemic,
1:48.0	that was starting to look as for it,
	...

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