Are networks the glue of society or the architecture of privilege?

Michael Buerk chairs a special debate from the Hay Festival examining the morality of networks.

The release of the Epstein files has been a reminder that power often flows not just through formal institutions, but through webs of connection: political friendships, old school ties, and professional circles. Figures such as Peter Mandelson and Prince Andrew have focused attention on how influential networks operate, and how access, opportunity and protection can follow. Critics say such cases expose a world where success depends less on merit than on who you know.

But networks are not confined to the wealthy or the powerful. From journalism and politics to business, academia and religion, informal relationships shape how institutions actually work. People rely on contacts for jobs, introductions and advice. Trust is built through familiarity. Sociologists call this “social capital”, the networks of relationships that allow communities and organisations to function. Anthropologists go further: humans are a networked species, whose survival has long depended on cooperation, loyalty and mutual obligation.

The moral tension is that the same instincts that create trust also draw boundaries. Networks build solidarity, but they also decide who is inside and who is left outside. Opportunity, influence and sometimes harm can circulate within closed circles. What looks like loyalty from the inside can look like exclusion from the outside.

So when does social capital become social injustice? Are networks the glue of society, or the architecture of privilege?

Chair: Michael Buerk;
Panel: Anne McElvoy, Matthew Taylor, Mona Siddiqui and Ella Whelan;
Witnesses: Aaron Reeves, Shaun Butler, Andrew Graystone, Julia Hobsbawm;
Producer: Dan Tierney;
Editor: Tim Pemberton.