Daron Acemoglu on Why Liberalism Became a Victim of Its Own Success

Yascha Mounk and Daron Acemoglu examine how the digital age severed the link between economic growth and shared prosperity.

Daron Acemoglu is an economist at MIT and a recipient of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Economics. His latest book is What Happened to Liberal Democracy?

In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Daron Acemoglu discuss why liberal democracy’s post-war formula for shared prosperity broke down, how the rise of a college-educated professional class produced a cultural backlash against “social engineering,” and how to shape the future of artificial intelligence.

We’re delighted to feature this conversation as part of our series on Liberal Virtues and Values.

This series, made possible with the generous support of the John Templeton Foundation, features content making the case that liberalism has its own distinctive set of virtues and values that are capable not only of responding to the dissatisfaction that drives authoritarianism, but also of restoring faith in liberalism as an ideology worth believing in—and defending—on its own terms.

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Email: leonora.barclay@persuasion.community

Podcast production by Mickey Freeland and Leonora Barclay.

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