The basic liberal story says that by cooperating we can build a world that is better for everyone. Is this vision of the world failing? And what might...
Historian Yuval Noah Harari questions whether the liberal vision of cooperation building a better world for everyone is failing, and explores what might replace it, in an interview on the New York Times Opinion podcast with Ezra Klein.
Background
- Yuval Noah Harari is the Israeli historian and bestselling author of *Sapiens*, *Homo Deus*, and *Nexus*, known for sweeping narratives about humanity’s past and future.
- Ezra Klein is a prominent American journalist, author (*Why We’re Polarized*), and host of *The Ezra Klein Show* at The New York Times, focused on political ideology and governance.
- "The basic liberal story" refers to the postwar liberal order’s core promise: that democracy, markets, cooperation, and institutions like the UN gradually deliver peace and prosperity for all.
- Harari and Klein are probing whether that story still holds after years of rising authoritarianism, populism, climate crises, AI disruption, and collapsing trust in institutions — and, if not, what ideologies might replace it.