GZERO World Clips
How the social contract broke

When Did Society Stop Working for the People in It? | GZERO World

Anyone who's seen an episode of "Leave it to Beaver" or "The Wonder Years" knows how the American dream is supposed to work: the white picket fence, the suburban home and the 2.5 handsome young children playing in the backyard. It's a sort of social contract, one that this country has built its identify around for the last half century. But is that dream dead? Or at the very least, far outdated? Few young people today can expect a stable career without an expensive college education and many older people are spending far more years in retirement than past generations. So what do we do when the social contract breaks down? And how do we patch up all the holes in the social safety net? London School of Economics Director Minouche Shafik shares some solutions (hint: "free money" isn't one of them).
Watch the episode: Is modern society broken?
Global conflict was at a record high in 2025, will 2026 be more peaceful? Ian Bremmer talks with CNN’s Clarissa Ward and Comfort Ero of the International Crisis Group on the GZERO World Podcast.
Think you know what's going on around the world? Here's your chance to prove it.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi isn’t necessarily known as the greatest friend of Muslim people, yet his own government is now seeking to build bridges with Afghanistan’s Islamist leaders, the Taliban.
The European Union just pulled off something that, a year ago, seemed politically impossible: it froze $247 billion in Russian central bank assets indefinitely, stripping the Kremlin of one of its most reliable pressure points.