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Political philosopher and author, Michael Sandel, in conversation with Yuval Noah Harari.
This conversation was organized by Penguin Random House and was originally recorded at the Guadalajara International Book Fair 2020.
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Sandel and Harari argue that the rise of authoritarian populism stems from failures of center-left parties to address inequality and loss of dignity through meaningful structural reform, combined with a dangerous shift of human agency toward technological solutions rather than political transformation.
- Center-left parties abandoned their historic mission to restrain capitalism, instead offering meritocratic individual mobility that insulted working people and accelerated inequality of esteem
- Populist backlash targets minorities rather than elites because the economy of honor—not just material inequality—drives political resentment
- Humanity increasingly seeks mastery through biotechnology and engineering while ceding agency in social/political realms, a reversal that disempowers democratic citizenship
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The key defining feature of populism is that populist leaders divide the country into two camps: the real people (their supporters) and the enemies of the people (the opposing political side), which is fundamentally opposed to the nationalist project and a key reason democracy is collapsing.
“if you're asking what's the definition of populist, that that's that's the key. They divide. The populists are people, leaders, who say the na- the the country is divided into two camps. There are the real people, my supporters, and there are the enemies of the people. All those on the other side of the political aisle. They're not really part of the people. They are enemies. They are traitors.”
Humans have had enormous success in improving society not through technological innovation but through changing values, stories, and social structures, as evidenced by drastic reduction in violence and improvements in racial and gender equality.
“There are many successful attempts to better human society, not through the invention of some new tool, some new technology, but by changing the values, the stories, the structure of the society itself. You know, one of the biggest achievements I think of humankind has been the drastic reduction of violence over the last few generations. And even though it owes something to a technical invention, the nuclear bomb, to a large extent it's was done by changing human values and human society.”
The fixation on technological solutions to social problems is dangerous because it ignores that tools have no built-in instructions for use; if society retains bad values, new tools just amplify the capacity to do evil.
“if you've done nothing to change the society and its values, you just invented a new tool, then if the if the society has evil values, it's now just more powerful to to do its evil things. You've done nothing, you just made things worse.”
What contemporary authoritarian populists like Trump, Bolsonaro, and Netanyahu are doing is deliberately breaking the nation into hostile tribes by inciting internal hatred, which is the opposite of nationalism and is incompatible with democracy.
“they are tribal leaders, not nationalist leaders. The main project of the nation, the main difficulty of the nation historically, is not fighting against foreigners. That's easy. The difficult thing is to get 50 million people, or in the case say of India, more than a billion people, with different languages and religions and social class to nevertheless feel connected. That's the big project of nationalism. And people like Trump and Bolsonaro and Netanyahu, they are working against this project, not in favor of it.”
Disagreement about scientific facts like climate change is not primarily rooted in differing factual knowledge but in deep political divisions; the partisan divide on climate increases with education and scientific literacy, not the reverse.
“I think the reason we disagree about the facts and about science is that we have these deep political divisions. And the only way to heal the polarization about separate factual universes is to deal with the underlying political problem.”
The politicization of science is a rising global wave that will worsen as more forces that change the world become scientific (AI, bioengineering, climate), making it increasingly impossible for scientists to avoid political entanglement.
“it's it's a rising wave and it will just become worse and worse because more and more of the things that the the forces that change the world are scientific. And we again, we saw it with climate change. We see it now with the epidemic. It will be even worse with artificial intelligence, with bioengineering.”
Center-left parties in the 1990s and 2000s offered university education and credentialization as the answer to globalization-driven inequality, but this was far too narrow a response and implicitly insulted those without degrees by suggesting their failure was their own fault.
“when it came to contending in the 2000s, '90s and 2000s with the deepening inequality and the wage stagnation and the outsourcing of jobs they offered the following promise. They said if you want to compete and win in the global economy go to university. Get a degree. What you earn will depend on what you learn. You can make it if you try.”
The divide between winners and losers has been deepening in recent decades, poisoning our politics and driving us apart, partly due to widening inequalities from four decades of globalization but also due to changing attitudes toward success that generate hubris among winners and humiliation among those left behind.
“at the heart of it is the fact that the divide between winners and losers has been deepening in recent decades. Poisoning our politics and driving us apart. This has partly to do with the widening inequalities that we've seen during four decades of globalization, but it's not only economic inequality. I think it has to do also with changing attitudes toward success, toward winning and losing”
Economists specifically discredited scientific expertise and credibility during the age of neoliberal globalization, but they have not paid the price and remain in positions of authority while other scientists (climate scientists, gender studies scholars) are attacked in their stead.
“The economists discredited scientific expertise during the age, I think, of neoliberal globalization... economists have discredited science, but nobody is attacking the economists. They're mostly attacking the climate scientists, the gender studies department. they are made to pay the price for the sins of the economist.”
Confining science to academic elites is unjustified and dangerous because it creates wrong impressions and leaves a vacuum that conspiracy theories and disinformation fill, particularly on politicized scientific topics like climate and epidemiology.
“I think it's it's unjustified. It it creates wrong impressions. Um I think the latest scientific findings in most areas should be accessible to everyone... if you shut out most people from the conversation, saying to them, "No, that's too complicated for you to understand." Then that's the fertile space. That's the vacuum which all kinds of conspiracy theories and disinformation is is then then fills.”
Center-left parties have become more attuned to the values and interests of professional, well-educated, credentialed classes than to working-class voters who once constituted their base, as evidenced by the electoral realignment where education became one of the deepest divides in politics.
“by 2016 the Democratic Party uh in the US, the Labour Party in Britain, the Socialist parties in Europe were more attuned to the values and interests of the professional classes, the well-educated classes, the the the credentialed elites than they were to the working class voters who once constituted their base.”
Throughout human history, humans have been much more successful at controlling nature and animals than at building happy, just societies; after the agricultural revolution, ordinary people became more miserable despite greater technological power.
“I think it was always harder to control humans than to control, have mastery over animals and plants and the environment at least since the for for thousands and thousands of years. If you go back to the agricultural revolution 10,000 years ago, humans have gained an amazing ability to control other animals and plants and the landscape, they had much much less success in building in using the power the new powers of agriculture to build a happy, just human society. That was a miserable failure.”
Populism is a global phenomenon rising across diverse economic conditions—in countries where working classes lost from globalization (US) and in countries where they benefited (Turkey, India, Brazil)—suggesting that globalization and inequality alone cannot explain the phenomenon.
“the thing about the populist wave of the last few years is that it's a global phenomenon. It's not just Brexit. It's not just Trump. You see the rise of authoritarian populists all over the world. In Brazil, in Hungary, in Poland, in Turkey, in my home country of Israel, in the Philippines, in India. And under very diverse conditions. Some countries like the US, you can make a very convincing argument that at least the working classes have lost a lot from globalization. So, they are against it. But the working classes in Turkey, in India, in Brazil arguably benefited enormously from globalization.”
Scientists wanting to remain apolitical and confined to laboratories cannot avoid politics because scientific questions increasingly determine political outcomes; politicians expect scientists to solve political problems through technical expertise, which is misguided because politics is about power, not truth.
“the scientists that you know, most scientists, they don't want to be involved in politics. They want to sit in the laboratories, just do their research, write their papers and forget about the political implications of what they are doing. But increasingly, that will not be possible.”
The concept of the economy of honor and esteem—not just material inequality—is central to understanding political resentment, as dignity, recognition, and respect matter as much as income and wealth for human flourishing.
“We need also to focus on the economy of esteem and the way in which recent decades have eroded and these policies and this politics have eroded the dignity of work, the sense or sense of honor and recognition and esteem that that all of us would like to receive in in return for the contributions we make to the economy and to the common good.”
The role of center-left parties is not merely to acknowledge identity-based injustice but to ask difficult questions about their own failures and to diagnose legitimate working-class grievances that populists exploit, rather than dismissing populist voters as inherently racist.
“social democratic parties need to be self-critical. It's not enough to say, "They're all voting for him because they are all racists." Because what that misses, that lets us off the hook too easily.”
The main upheavals in the honor economy over recent decades have not been about education but about race, sex, and gender identities, as evidenced by authoritarian figures like Orban banning gender studies programs while leaving economics departments untouched.
“the main thing I see is not just the question of education, it's above all the question of race and sex and gender. The biggest upheavals weren't so much in terms of the honor of education. It was in the honor attributed to racial and gender identities.”
Trust in scientific and political expertise can only be restored by addressing the underlying political grievances—the history of elite failure in economic and social policy—rather than by better communicating scientific facts to skeptical populations.
“Then I think the problem about facts and science will become more pliable rather than the other way around... How can we begin to address those? How can we begin to restore some trust across social divisions?”
The politicization of scientific expertise during the pandemic—where progressives invoked 'the science' as a cudgel and blamed pandemic deaths on Trump rather than addressing underlying political grievances—represented a technocratic orientation that discredits science and obscures the real problem: mistrust rooted in elite failure.
“What you just now said about science you brings to mind something that worries me about the way science is invoked in public discourse these days. Especially by those on the opposite side of the authoritarian populists we've been discussing. By liberals, by progressives, by Democrats, small d Democrats. More and more we hear especially during the pandemic the failure of Trump, for example, is he's not following the science. I will be followed, we should follow the science.”
The Industrial Revolution followed the same pattern as the Agricultural Revolution: it was much easier to invent steam engines than to create a flourishing, peaceful, just industrial society, requiring several failed terrible experiments (Soviet communism, Nazi Germany) before any success.
“You go to the industrial revolution, you see the same thing. It was much easier to invent steam engines than to correctly understand what to do with them. We you have one failed experiment after another of how to create a flourishing, peaceful, just industrial society. Eventually, I think we got it right, relatively speaking, but after several terrible failed experiments, like uh Soviet communism or Nazi Germany and then and so forth.”
Despite widespread political disempowerment, ordinary people in democracies have greater influence over political arrangements than peasants in the Middle Ages or populations in ancient empires, and material conditions are still better than in historical societies.
“I do take some comfort in the thought that yes, maybe people feel that they can't affect the social and political arrangements, but actually they have a greater influence than ordinary peasants in the Middle Ages or the vast majority of the population in ancient Egypt or in ancient China. And similarly, when you look at the at the outcomes, then despite all the problems of our society, we are still much better off than the average medieval kingdom or the average uh ancient empire.”
People think in stories and images more naturally than in abstract academic language; making scientific findings accessible requires changing communication forms from professional jargon to narrative and visual media.
“most people think in stories, then I focus on storytelling. And in the new project, the graphic novel, I try to switch to a new medium of images which many people find easier to understand and easier to connect with than just words.”
Most scientific topics like economics, history, climate, and disease are understandable to general audiences without advanced degrees if experts make an effort to translate rather than confine knowledge to professional jargon and academic circles.
“Maybe some academic subjects really are so complicated that most people can't understand them. Like, I don't know, quantum mechanics. I don't understand it. I think most people don't understand it. You need very high levels of mathematics to grasp it. Maybe this is an exception. But economics and history and climate and diseases, you should be able you can understand the basic facts of science without a degree.”
Nationalism, properly understood, invokes a sense of shared community and fellow feeling across strangers unified by a common political project, distinct from tribalism or xenophobia, and is necessary for democracy because citizens must believe they share a common fate.
“At the core of nationalism is the idea that I should be loyal to complete strangers that I've never met in my life, and that I should care about them, care about them enough to take care of their welfare and education and health and so forth.”
AI represents a fundamental break from all previous technologies because AI may eventually tell humans what to do, eliminating even the theoretical possibility of value-neutral tools.
“maybe part of what is fueling the political crisis we are seeing around us is this deep sense that time is running out, that if humans don't exercise their agency in the near future, they will lose that agency. I mean, all previous technological inventions in human history, they did not they empowered humanity. But the current wave of technological inventions for the first time, at least I think, it really endangers human agency. We see a shift in power from humans to algorithms. And one possible explanation, I don't know if it's true, but one possible explanation for the political upheavals around the world is that a lot of people are sensing that this is kind of almost the last chance to exercise their agency.”
Meritocracy generates hubris among winners and humiliation among those left behind, producing a galling sense among working people that elites look down on them, which is one of the most potent sources of populist backlash.
“Meritocracy has a dark side. Because it generates hubris among the winners and humiliation among those who are left behind. One of the most potent sources I think of the populist backlash against elites is the galling sense among many working people that elites look down on them.”
A puzzle of populism is that if it were truly a reaction to elite hubris and inequality, one would expect it to target the rich and powerful, but instead the main victims are minorities, immigrants, and LGBTQ people.
“why are the main victims of populism not the rich elites or supposedly to blame for all that? The main victims are minorities and immigrants and LGBTs and and and so forth. You know, you look at the Trump administration. It doesn't seem that it's kind of directing its uh force against the rich and powerful or even the educated.”
Why haven't we seen the rise of a left populist or democratic socialist party that opposes inequality and meritocratic excess but remains committed to democratic institutions, whereas authoritarian right-wing populism has proliferated globally?
“I don't think would concern so much you and me if we saw the rise of a party which is clearly against inequality, it's against the excesses of the meritocratic elite, it's against the excesses of capitalism, but it's not against democracy... why haven't we seen the rise of that kind of party? And you know, if it was only the US, then you can explain it with various accidents or unique situation, but we haven't seen it almost anywhere.”
With AI and bioengineering, humanity likely has only one chance to get it right; if we fail this time, it may result in the end of humankind, making the stakes incomparably higher than previous technological transitions.
“With the kind of powers we are now developing, especially AI and bioengineering, I don't think we have more than one chance. If we get this one wrong, this may very well be the end of of humankind in one way or the other.”
The contemporary paradox is that human agency is most confident in re-engineering nature (including human nature through genetics) while feeling most disempowered over social and political arrangements, when in fact social/political transformation should be easier than transcending human nature.
“if we think about human agency if we think about the aspiration of humans to exert mastery and control over our circumstances for us these days it seems that the most promising, buoyant, confident arena for the exercise of human mastery, agency, control consists in our faith and our growing power to engineer or to re-engineer nature including our own nature... And yet when we think about social life, when we think about politics and economics we feel disempowered.”
The political crisis we are experiencing may stem from a deep sense that time is running out and that if humans don't exercise political agency soon, they will lose it to technological systems that operate beyond human control.
“maybe part of what is fueling the political crisis we are seeing around us is this deep sense that time is running out, that if humans don't exercise their agency in the near future, they will lose that agency... We see a shift in power from humans to algorithms.”
The democratic alternative to authoritarian populism requires political parties and leaders to impose restraint on the excesses of capitalism and to serve as effective instruments of popular will, a role center-left parties have lost.
“I think that the democratic project, broadly conceived, depends on the ability of democratic societies and political parties who organize those societies to impose a certain restraint on the excesses of capitalism. And instead, what's truly in most of the countries uh where we see the populist uh backlash is that they've lost the the the political parties have lost the capacity to do this. They've ceased to be effective instruments of popular will.”
Trump won 2/3 of white voters without college degrees in 2016 and again in 2020, demonstrating that the working-class/credentialed divide remains a deep structural feature of American politics that electoral victories don't address.
“Trump won among whites without a college degree. In 2016, Trump won 2/3 of them. And in 2020, when Biden defeated him, Trump won 2/3 of them. So, that problem remains.”
Harari as a historian is skeptical about identifying causal connections in history, believing we are better at describing what happens than understanding why it happens, and therefore struggles to find a global explanation for why populism is rising under such diverse economic conditions.
“as a historian, I tend maybe to be a bit more skeptical about our ability to identify causal connections in history. Um I belong to the type of historians who think that we are much better at describing what happens than at understanding why it happens.”
Trump won two-thirds of white voters without a college degree in both 2016 and 2020, demonstrating that the working-class/education divide persists as a central political problem even after his initial victory.
“Trump won among whites without a college degree. In 2016, Trump won 2/3 of them. And in 2020, when Biden defeated him, Trump won 2/3 of them.”
Progressive and center-left parties have focused their political message primarily and most visibly on racial justice, gender equality, and sexual identity issues, which has been important but may have diverted attention from structural economic inequality.
“the that liberalism and progressive politics and social democratic politics has done has done a a a good job of focusing on questions of race, gender, sex in terms of social justice and honor. And in many ways this has been the strongest, most prominent, most visible feature of the political message in the political project of center-left parties in recent decades.”
70 million Americans voted to continue Trump despite the pandemic disaster, a fact that should lead Democrats to ask why rather than comfort themselves that Trump voters are simply racist, pointing to legitimate grievances they've ignored.
“In the aftermath of this 2020 election, the question Democrats should be asking themselves is not "Thank goodness we can restore things the way they were before Trump interrupted our steady march to progress." The question we should be asking, the number we should have foremost in our minds is 70 million. Why, despite the disaster of the last 4 years, despite his bungling of the pandemic, 70 million people wanted this to continue?”
In most countries, about two-thirds of the population do not have a university degree, making it folly to create an economy that makes dignified work and a decent life dependent on credentials most people don't have.
“We can easily forget that in most countries most people don't have a university degree. About two-thirds do not in the United States and in most European countries.”
Center-left parties accepted uncritically the Reagan-Thatcher premise that market mechanisms are the primary instruments for defining and achieving the public good, and failed in their historic mission to rein in the excesses of capitalism and hold it to democratic account.
“center-left parties have failed to do this. And I think one of the reasons they failed to do it is that they did not they accepted uncritically the premise of the Reagan-Thatcher celebration of markets. That premise was that a market faith that market mechanisms are the primary instruments for defining and achieving the public good.”
The solution to managing advanced technologies like AI and bioengineering is not technical but political and educational—through democratic deliberation, persuasion, and changing values rather than relying on experts to determine proper use.
“even the smartest smart machines can't tell us how they should be used. That I think is ultimately for us as democratic citizens, which suggests a project not of manipulation, but of education and of persuasion.”
Watson's argument that we should engineer low IQ away rather than reform society to accommodate cognitive diversity represents a chilling concession of human political agency and a choice to remake humans rather than improve human institutions.
“And Watson's reply was, "Oh, we're we're never going to be able to change society. That's way too hard. That's why we need to use genetic engineering to solve this problem." And I found that a revealing but chilling answer. Not only because of its eugenic sensibility, but also because it seemed to concede so readily the project of moral and political improvement.”
Making science and historical knowledge accessible through new media forms like graphic novels is not a dumbing down but a necessary translation that can deepen engagement with scientific questions by forcing concreteness and raising new research problems.
“In many ways, I think the graphic novel is even deeper than the original version of Sapiens. It's certainly not Sapiens with illustrations on the side. It's a completely new approach to how to tell science which might not be um to the to the liking of uh some professors and academics. But I think it doesn't sell science short.”
The real solution to problems like low IQ is not genetic engineering but social and economic reform to ensure dignified lives for people of all cognitive abilities, yet technocrats choose genetic solutions because they assume social transformation is impossible.
“I asked him, "Do you consider having a low IQ to be a disease in need of a cure?" And he said, "Yes, of course, because people with low IQs live very difficult lives. They have trouble making a living and so on." And a student raised her hand and asked, "Well, given that's the case, why don't we try to reform the economy and society so that people with low IQs don't live such hard lives?"”
The Me Too and Black Lives Matter movements, emerging during the Trump presidency, represent genuine achievements in drawing attention to racial and gender injustice across multiracial, multigenerational coalitions.
“during the Trump presidency we have seen the emergence of the Me Too movement and the Black Lives Matter movement as truly powerful multiracial, multigenerational movements. And actually, I think this is one of the greatest achievements of the Trump presidency to have called forth and reinforced and broadened the appeal of these movements.”
Progressive political success in improving racial and gender equality in recent decades, while real, has not been accompanied by addressing structural economic inequality, creating an incomplete political victory that leaves working-class grievances unaddressed.
“And when it comes to racial inequality, to gender inequality, they really managed to improve things and not by inventing a new technology. So, this fixation that the answer to any problem we have is just to invent a new technology, that's extremely dangerous.”