John Lanchester
speaker
548 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Jun 2026
last heard 27 Jun
John Lanchester’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 1.
Appearances
I think that's another thing that's changed the social contract.
Maybe there's someone here who knows, but when I was writing about economics,
I asked this question to multiple economists, which was that since the benefit, they quantified the amount of benefit of a degree, I think it's about 200 grand across the earnings career of your working life.
A university degree is worth about 200 grand on average.
So the question is, well, if that's true, and the state takes roughly a third of what you earn in tax, doesn't that mean that the state makes a profit
on everyone who goes to university and therefore it's a public good that should be stated.
And every single economist crossly says, no, that's not true.
And then they can walk off.
But I've never got an answer.
Or it's more complicated than that.
And they huff and go off.
But it's definitely, that's definitely changed the, you know, not just higher education, the whole kind of calculus of what it's like for young people.
Oh, I think they have a bit.
I mean, I think when I started writing Capital, I started writing about 2006.
And I mean, I thought there was a bubble in housing, the bubble was going to pop.
So I started writing with a dramatic irony in mind that the reader would know something that the characters didn't.
by the time I'd finished it and the book came out, this thing would have... In retrospect, it was quite a big bet to make because it's going to take a few years to write.
And then, of course, I thought it was a London house property bubble.
And in fact, it was this global systemic economic crisis.
Imagine my luck.
Showing 301–320 of 548 · page 16 of 28
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