Yanis Varoufakis on the death of capitalism, Starmer and the tyranny of big tech
Ways to Change the World with Krishnan Guru-Murthy
Release Date: 09/29/2023
US Presidential candidate Cornel West on Israel Hamas war, greedy ruling class and Biden vs Trump
Ways to Change the World with Krishnan Guru-Murthy
US Presidential candidate Dr Cornel West is a philosopher and prominent advocate for social and racial justice. He’s taught at some of the top universities in the US including Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, but has one major plan if he becomes President: to “dismantle the American empire”. The 71-year-old activist, who campaigned for Biden in 2020, has recently been vocal against both the Democratic and Republican’s party’s stance on Gaza, which he calls “morally bankrupt”. Though he faces very long odds in winning the race, he says he wants to appeal to a group of...
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Economist Joseph Stiglitz on Pro-Palestine campus protests, Trump and rethinking freedom
Ways to Change the World with Krishnan Guru-Murthy
Nobel Prize Laureate Joseph Stiglitz is one of the most influential economists in the world, having advised multiple Democratic Presidents of the US and the World Bank, where he worked as Chief Economist and senior Vice President. His latest book, called “,” argues that the economic right’s concept of “freedom” doesn’t take into account the necessary trade-offs, that one person’s freedom often comes at the expense of another’s. And that “free” - unregulated - markets, far from promoting growth and enterprise, in fact lessen economic opportunities for majorities and syphon...
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Comedian Bassem Youssef on the Israel-Gaza war, the Arab Spring, and why we can’t change the world
Ways to Change the World with Krishnan Guru-Murthy
Bassem Youssef thinks that he’s come on the wrong podcast. “People in power don't really care about any of our suggestions to change the world”, he tells Krishnan Guru-Murthy, “because if our ways to change the world affect their interests, they will stop you.” And he knows what he’s talking about, having fled his home country of Egypt after his TV comedy became no longer acceptable to the authorities there. Bassem started his career as a heart surgeon, then moved to political comedy in response to the 2011 Egyptian Revolution, taking on the ruling elite in his country. His...
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Playwright of Jodie Comer's Broadway hit, Suzie Miller, on sexual assault and getting justice
Ways to Change the World with Krishnan Guru-Murthy
When lawyer turned playwright Suzie Miller created a one-woman show starring Jodie Comer for the West End and Broadway called ‘Prima Facie’, she wouldn’t have dreamt that her play would fuel real change in the legal system’s approach to sexual assault cases. The play has won multiple awards, has inspired efforts to change UK laws, and has also been turned into a book of the same title. In this episode of Ways to Change the World, Suzie Miller tells Krishnan Guru-Murthy why rape victims are failed by the legal system, how trauma is misunderstood in the court room,...
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Poet Nikki Giovanni on white supremacy, the Capitol attack, and teaching the Virginia Tech shooter
Ways to Change the World with Krishnan Guru-Murthy
Nikki Giovanni has spent more than five decades in the public eye, as an activist, poet and innovator. Born on the "wrong side of the tracks" in Knoxville, Tennessee, during the era of segregation, Giovanni came of age during the Black power and civil rights movements in 1960s in America. She came under the spotlight again in 2007, when the university she had been teaching at, Virginia Tech, was the victim of a mass shooting, carried out by one of her former students. The poem she wrote to commemorate the 32 victims, “We are Virginia Tech”, touched many people across the world. In this...
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Armistead Maupin on trans rights and growing up gay in a homophobic household
Ways to Change the World with Krishnan Guru-Murthy
Author Armistead Maupin is a pioneer - writing about AIDS and HIV for a mass audience and daring to include gay, lesbian, trans and queer lives when few others were. His ‘Tales of the City’ series, which started as a newspaper column in 1974, became worldwide best-selling novels and a Netflix series. It chronicles the lives of queer people in San Francisco and pokes fun at morality and social norms, touching millions of readers and viewers over 50 years. The beloved saga is now back for its 10th and final instalment, Mona of the Manor. Now in his late 70s and living in...
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Author Kiley Reid on Black artists, handling criticism and social media
Ways to Change the World with Krishnan Guru-Murthy
“I don’t write fiction to preach my politics,” says Kiley Reid - an American author whose debut novel “Such a Fun Age” was longlisted for the 2020 Booker prize. The book gained recognition for its themes on race, privilege, and social dynamics in modern America. Fast forward to 2024, and Reid’s second novel, “Come and Get It” delves even further into the heart of societal complexities. It’s based in a US campus and centred around money and wealth - who has it and who wants it - and the impact it has, on even the most personal of relationships. In this episode of Ways to...
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Timpson’s boss on upside-down management and business secrets
Ways to Change the World with Krishnan Guru-Murthy
How do you measure a business’s success? For James Timpson, CEO of the Timpson’s Group, it comes down to two things: the satisfaction of its staff, and what it gives back to society. His employees only have to “put money in the till and look the part”; for the rest, they have complete authority to do whatever they think is right to offer a quality service to customers. This “upside-down” style of management doesn’t mean the business is not profitable - quite the opposite, in fact. In this episode of Ways to Change the World, the boss of the shoe-repair, key-cutting and...
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Bernie Sanders on Gaza, genocide and Trump
Ways to Change the World with Krishnan Guru-Murthy
Bernie Sanders is the longest-serving independent senator in US congressional history and has brought income inequality, poverty and the “uber-capitalist” status quo into focus throughout his decades-long career. He nearly became the Democrats’ candidate for president, twice, and has recently been backing Joe Biden against Donald Trump, warning that Trump’s re-election could be the end of American democracy. In his latest book, “It’s Okay To Be Angry About Capitalism”, he presents his vision of what would be possible through a progressive agenda - one that would challenge the...
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Crystal Hefner on her marriage to Hugh and being ‘trapped’ in the Playboy Mansion
Ways to Change the World with Krishnan Guru-Murthy
Crystal Hefner was 21 when she first entered the infamous Playboy Mansion in October 2008. Within months, she ascended its hierarchy to become the top girlfriend of Hugh Hefner, who was 60 years her senior, and went on to marry him in 2012. But she quickly discovered the house was not the glittering sanctuary she had believed, nor Mr Hefner’s Playboy was the place of freedom, expression and empowerment it professed itself to be. Crystal only left the mansion when Hefner died, aged 91, in 2017. Having made a promise to the Playboy tycoon to ‘only say good things’ about him, for years...
info_outlineThe world is witnessing an epochal shift, according to Greek economist Yanis Varoufakis: from the now-dead capitalism, to “technofeudalism”.
In his latest book, the former Greek politician - who in 2015, at the height of the Greek debt crisis, was catapulted from academic obscurity to Minister of Finance - argues that insane sums of money that were supposed to re-float our economies in the wake of the financial crisis and the 2020 pandemic have ended up supercharging big tech's hold over every aspect of the economy. And capitalism's twin pillars - markets and profit - have been replaced with big tech's platforms and rents; while we, the “cloud serfs”, increase these companies’ power with every online click and scroll.
Today on Ways to Change the World, Yanis Varufakis tells Krishnan Guru-Murthy how the world is grappling with an entirely new economic system and therefore political power, and why Britain and the EU are “irrelevant” compared with the “fiefdoms” of US and Chinese tech firms.
Produced by Silvia Maresca