Vienna Humanities Festival

What's Become of the Common Good? Michael Sandel in Conversation with Ivan Krastev. In englischer Sprache.

The rise of populism has acted as a wake-up call: Western societies need a serious fix. Betrayed promises of equality and justice have unlocked resentment and anger that have started to tear our communities apart. ‘Rock star philosopher’ Michael Sandel examines whether a fairer society is still within our grasp today. He asks if such a thing as the common good still exists; whether and how we should value and reward citizens’ contributions to the economy. His reflections take us to the very heart of what human dignity actually means.

In his award-winning, bestselling book The Tyranny of Merit: What's Become of the Common Good?, Michael Sandel, one of the world’s most popular philosophers, has provided us with arguably the most elaborated critic of the values and reward systems that underpin contemporary western societies. But the merit-based system is not making us any happier. Where does the path to more just societies lie?

Sandel’s keynote address for the Vienna Humanities Festival, followed by a conversation with IWM permanent fellow Ivan Krastev, invites us to a serious rethinking of the fundamentals of the society in which we want to live.