Daniel Markovits Talks MERITOCRACY TRAP On Tom Needham's SOUNDS OF FILM

Daniel Markovits,the author of The Meritocracy Trap: How America's Foundational Myth Feeds Inequality, Dismantles the Middle Class, and Devours the Elite, is Tom Needham's exclusive guest this Thursday on THE SOUNDS OF FILM. In addition, the show will feature interviews with filmmakers Susan Lacy and Martha Shane.

Markovits makes the case that today's meritocracy has become a mechanism for the dynastic transmission of wealth and privilege across generations, but today's aristocrats are not the gilded age's idle rich. He exposes a new form of aristocracy that only claims to be fair and benevolent, but is a pretense, constructed to rationalize an unjust distribution of advantage, one which history shows will lead to a disastrous end. The book reveals the inner workings of the machine, and also illuminates the first steps outward, toward a hopeful new world.

Daniel Markovits is Guido Calabresi Professor of Law at Yale Law School and founding director of the Center for the Study of Private Law.

Susan Lacy's Jane Fonda in Five Acts tells the story of cultural icon, Jane Fonda. The film explores her controversial life as a sex kitten, activist, fitness tycoon and Oscar-winner. The film draws on over 21 hours of interviews with Fonda who speaks openly about her mother's suicide, her relationship with her father, her eating disorder and three marriages. The movie features insightful interviews with Robert Redford, Lily Tomlin, Tom Hayden and Ted Turner.

Susan Lacy is the creator of PBS' American Masters. Her last film was HBO's Spielberg.

Martha Shane's Narrowsburg tells the story of a French film producer and a mafioso-turned-actor who attempt to turn a tiny town into the "Sundance of the East." Persuading the townspeople that they can be movie stars, the pair create a fever pitch of excitement, launching a film festival and shooting a gangster movie. As this stranger-than-fiction tale unspools, it becomes a meditation on the power of cinema, and the fine line between dreams and delusions.

Martha Shane is an Emmy-award-winning documentary filmmaker. Her directorial debut After Tiller premiered in the U.S. Documentary Competition at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival and won the Emmy for Best Documentary. In 2019, her film Picture Character, a feature-length documentary about emoji, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. Martha produced and co-wrote the award-winning documentary From This Day Forward, which was theatrically released by Argot Pictures and broadcast on the PBS documentary series POV, and she produced and co-directed the feature documentary Bi the Way, which had its premiere at the SXSW Film Festival.

THE SOUNDS OF FILM is the nation's longest running film and music themed radio show. For the past 30 years, the program has delivered a popular mix of interviews and music to listeners all over Long Island, parts of Connecticut and streaming live worldwide on the internet. Past people interviewed for the show include Don McLean, Nile Rodgers, Jimmy Webb, William H. Macy, Cheech & Chong, Hal Hartley, Carter Burwell, Laurie Anderson and Billy Joel.

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