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The Reith Lectures

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Significant international thinkers deliver the BBC's flagship annual lecture series.

The Reith Lectures - From Covid Crisis to Renaissance

The Reith Lectures: 2020: From Covid Crisis to Renaissance

From Covid Crisis to Renaissance

2020

BBC Parliament - The Reith Lectures, 2020, From Covid Crisis to Renaissance

Dr Mark Carney charts how we have come to esteem financial value over human value.

Dr Mark Carney charts how we have come to esteem financial value over human value and how we have gone from market economies to market societies.

Dr Carney observes that the Covid pandemic has forced states to confront how we value health, wealth and opportunity. During the first few months of the crisis, most states chose to value human life more than the economic wellbeing of the nation state. But if that seems to be changing, how do we assess value in this sense? 

Carney elucidates surprising differences in the financial value put on a human life in different nations – and goes on to argue that this reductionist approach fails to take into account deeper thinking about the worth of human existence. A version for television of the programme first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Wednesday 16 December. 

The Reith Lectures: 2020

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Mark Carney charts how we have come to esteem financial value over human value.

Mark Carney, former Governor of the Bank of England, argues that changing attitudes to value and the marketplace have contributed to a trio of crises: credit, Covid and climate.

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2020

From Covid Crisis to Renaissance

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