- First, in his opening essay, host Gordon Katic reminds listeners of the infamous case of General Motors and the side saddle gas tank defect of the 1970s and 80s. This story takes us to the world of cost-benefit analysis; a cold, hard logic that puts profits over people.
- Next, (@8:20) Kate Jacobson is co-host of the podcast Alberta Advantage, a left-wing podcast in the heart of Canadian conservatism. She warns us that Premier Jason Kenney is using McKinsey as a pretext for his slash-and-burn approach to higher education.
- Then, (@31:07) Matthew Stewart turned away from a potential career in academic philosophy to enter the world of management consulting. His tell-all book The Management Myth: Debunking the Modern Philosophy of Business takes us through his own time in consulting, and the broader intellectual history of management science—AKA the art of wringing every last ounce of labour from workers.
- Finally (@53:44), Joel Westheimer is University Research Chair in Democracy and Education at the University of Ottawa. His work asks the basic, core question “what is education for?” He thinks McKinsey does not know how to measure what really counts about education—because ‘not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.'
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