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Speaker 1: This is Master's in Business with Barry rid Hoolds on

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio.

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Speaker 2: My extra special guest this week is anand Gerdadis. He

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Speaker 2: is the best selling author of four separate books. Previously,

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Speaker 2: he was a foreign correspondent and columnist for The New

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Speaker 2: York Times. He has published at The New Yorker, the

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Speaker 2: Atlantic Time Magazine. He is an on air political analyst

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Speaker 2: for MSNBC and a publisher of the newsletter The inc.

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Speaker 2: His previous book, Winners Take All, was a bestseller. His

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Speaker 2: new book, The Persuaders at the front Lines of the

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Speaker 2: Fight for the Hearts and Minds of Democracy is out

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Speaker 2: now onand Welcome to Bloomberg.

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Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me.

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Speaker 2: Well, I've been following your work for a while and

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Speaker 2: I'm really excited to talk to you about both the

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Speaker 2: new book and some of the articles you've published recently.

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Speaker 2: But let's start out a little bit with your background,

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Speaker 2: because I've been in journalism for a few decades now.

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Speaker 2: But you began as a business analyst for McKinsey. I mean,

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Speaker 2: that's about his establishment as it gets. What was the

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Speaker 2: career plan?

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Speaker 1: You know, I actually knew exactly what I wanted to

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Speaker 1: do from a pretty young age, which is really what

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Speaker 1: I'm doing now, which is writing and being a journalist.

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Speaker 1: I figured it out for a semester of my sophomore

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Speaker 1: year of high school. That was when you could join

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Speaker 1: the high school newspaper, and with this newspaper at my

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Speaker 1: high school called Horizon, and I applied, and I got

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Speaker 1: into the newspaper, and from the first couple weeks of

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Speaker 1: writing stupid little school newspaper articles, I think I was

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Speaker 1: assigned to cover sports, and I didn't really play sports.

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Speaker 1: It was not that the content was so riveting to me,

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Speaker 1: but the idea that you could go out, look at

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Speaker 1: the world, see things, talk to people, see things with

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Speaker 1: your eyes, interpret what they mean, go back, write it up,

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Speaker 1: process it in your way, think about what you think

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Speaker 1: it means, and then on this very small scale few

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Speaker 1: hundred people would get it printed and delivered and they

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Speaker 1: would see it and it would go into their brains.

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Speaker 1: It was such an insanely magical concept to me that

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Speaker 1: I was very clear that first semester of softomore of

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Speaker 1: high school, like, this is what I want to do.

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Speaker 1: And you know, fast forward twenty eight years later, if

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Speaker 1: I have the math right, like, that's what I do

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Speaker 1: but there was this blip in the middle, and the

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Speaker 1: reason for the blip, the one year blip, was it

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Speaker 1: getting into journalism. Getting into writing is harder than getting

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Speaker 1: into you know, the most exclusive nightclub in Berlin.

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Speaker 2: You know.

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Speaker 1: I think it's gotten in some ways better because of

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Speaker 1: more awareness around how these barriers keep lots of people out.

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Speaker 1: In some ways it's gotten harder just because there's fewer

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Speaker 1: journalism jobs now even than when I was fifteen or

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Speaker 1: seventeen or twenty. But it was always this profession where,

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Speaker 1: at least in my experience, like there weren't job sites

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Speaker 1: where these jobs were listed. You kind of had to

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Speaker 1: figure out your way in and maybe write some freelance

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Speaker 1: articles for someone. And so as I was finishing college again,

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Speaker 1: dead set on journalism, applied for jobs, couldn't really find anything,

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Speaker 1: couldn't you know. I wanted to maybe go overseas, couldn't

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Speaker 1: find anything. And I got some advice from one of

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Speaker 1: my mentors, Jill Abramson, who was an editor at the

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Speaker 1: New York Times then and later became the editor of

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Speaker 1: the paper, and she said, you know, go out into

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Speaker 1: the world. Don't try to be a journalist by hanging

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Speaker 1: around in New York and Washington, like a thousand other

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Speaker 1: people trying to vuy for one job, one internship, Go

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Speaker 1: far away, see the world, come back with some knowledge

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Speaker 1: of something other people don't know, don't have some expertise

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Speaker 1: in something. Just go collide with the world.

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Speaker 2: Did you follow that advice?

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Speaker 1: I did? And so where did you go? So I

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Speaker 1: went to India, and so I worked for McKinsey, actually

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Speaker 1: because I basically decided I wanted to go to India,

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Speaker 1: and then I tried to get a journalism job. My

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Speaker 1: family had come from India.

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Speaker 2: My parents had ever grew up in Ohio.

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Speaker 1: I had never lived in India.

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Speaker 2: I mean you did you speak the language?

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Speaker 1: Nope?

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Speaker 2: I mean everybody speaks English, right.

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Speaker 1: I mean no, no, no, no, Like really the entire

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Speaker 1: elite speaks English. One or two percent of people speak

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Speaker 1: English and no one else does. And so I actually

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Speaker 1: had this quite tortured relationship to India, which is the

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Speaker 1: same as many you know, second generation kids where you know,

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Speaker 1: I always say, like, the first thing I learned about

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Speaker 1: India was that my parents chose to get out of it.

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Speaker 1: So it's not the best YELP review, right, But part

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Speaker 1: of me took this advice of colliding with the world. So,

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Speaker 1: you know, I should go to a place that I

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Speaker 1: have difficulty with, not a place that I have ease.

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Speaker 1: I mean I could go to London or whatever. I

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Speaker 1: should go to India because it'll be complicated and I'll

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Speaker 1: have to grapple with things and that'll make me a writer.

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Speaker 1: I had this kind of fantasy that the that the

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Speaker 1: forced grappling.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and so how was it?

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Speaker 1: It was incredible. I mean, that job was terrible. I

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Speaker 1: applied for journalism jobs. You know, no one was going

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Speaker 1: to send a twenty one year old University of Michigan

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Speaker 1: graduate to go be a foreign correspondent in India, which

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Speaker 1: I didn't quite understand at the time. So I started

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Speaker 1: looking for other things and I applied to the local

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Speaker 1: office of McKinsey. I think, making fourteen thousand dollars a

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Speaker 1: year on a local contract, I could barely pay for

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Speaker 1: my like shared it's like a room in someone else's

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Speaker 1: apartment because Bombay real estate prices are the same as

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Speaker 1: New York. Even though my salary was fourteen thousand dollars

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Speaker 1: a year. Wow, people live with their families or you know,

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Speaker 1: make make do. So that job was not great, and

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Speaker 1: I was not cut out for business. So I was

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Speaker 1: quite miserable that year. But I was miserable in a

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Speaker 1: way because I'd come to this really interesting place and

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Speaker 1: working in business. I had no engagement with the place.

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Speaker 1: I was just doing some random job, and I realized, like,

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Speaker 1: I need to either leave or I need to dig

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Speaker 1: into the society in my way, which is writing, thinking, journalism.

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Speaker 1: And so I, luckily after that year, got a job

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Speaker 1: at the New York Times. It was easier to get

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Speaker 1: a job once I was there on the ground, set

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Speaker 1: up new things, new people, and I got this job,

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Speaker 1: talked my way into this job at the Times, and

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Speaker 1: I've been a full time writer ever since it.

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Speaker 2: You wrote a book about your experience.

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Speaker 1: At the end of that six years in India. I

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Speaker 1: wrote a book about the transformation of modern India through

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Speaker 1: the stories of five families. It was so remarkable. Once

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Speaker 1: I had the right job, you know, and for someone

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Speaker 1: else doing business in India in that time would have

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Speaker 1: been a very exciting things my thing in the world.

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Speaker 1: But once my job was to observe what was around

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Speaker 1: me and try to process it and make sense of

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Speaker 1: it and turn it into writing and sometimes even art.

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Speaker 1: It was just the most remarkable place to be and

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Speaker 1: here as a remarkable country to be a writer, and

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Speaker 1: it's a colleague of mine Lydia. Paul Green once said

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Speaker 1: that there's no shortage of public opinion and it was

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Speaker 1: a remarkable place to cut my teeth as a as

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Speaker 1: a journalist.

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Speaker 2: So, how did your six years of experience in India

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Speaker 2: affect how you think about the job of seeing what's

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Speaker 2: happening in the world or in a local space, processing

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Speaker 2: it and writing it. And secondly, that's a really stratified

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Speaker 2: class system. How did India affect how you see the

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Speaker 2: world of you know, the top one percent, the top

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Speaker 2: point one percent and eventually winner's take all.

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Speaker 1: Such a good question. I'll do the second one first.

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Speaker 1: The kind of gruesome inequities of India that have just

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Speaker 1: been baked into India for a very long time.

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Speaker 2: Do people do people just assume it's just never going

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Speaker 2: to change, they just take it for granted, or is

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Speaker 2: there foment under the surface.

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Speaker 1: Well, remember, India never had a revolution the way China did, right,

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Speaker 1: And they never had a revolution the way Russia did, right.

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Speaker 1: So a lot of countries coming out of colonization in

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Speaker 1: the twentieth century had these kind of disruptions to the

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Speaker 1: social order. What is remarkable about modern India is that

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Speaker 1: it kind of built a liberal democracy coming out of colonization,

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Speaker 1: with this incredible group of communities and populations that are

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Speaker 1: as or more diverse than the countries of the European Union,

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Speaker 1: let's say, right, but all in one country, and it

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Speaker 1: never really had a rupture with the past where it

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Speaker 1: got rid of the old social order the way say

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Speaker 1: the Chinese cracked down on Confucianism or something like that.

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Speaker 1: So everything new that has been added India is sort

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Speaker 1: of layered on top of the old, but no old

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Speaker 1: layer was ever eradicated. And so what that results in

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Speaker 1: India is a lot of these very hierarchies that have

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Speaker 1: been pretty undisturbed. The caste system, but also just in

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Speaker 1: some places, in some rural areas, like the cast system

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Speaker 1: very much still functions. If you look at the distribution

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Speaker 1: of who works in the IT industry, it's still very

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Speaker 1: much follows cast even if people are not conscious of it.

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Speaker 1: Much like race here, but even more powerful than that

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Speaker 1: is an idea of caste, The kind of residual idea

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Speaker 1: of caste is the naturalness of human inequality. When the

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Speaker 1: Declaration of Independence starts with all men are created equal,

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Speaker 1: it's a radical statement. It was a radical statement.

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Speaker 2: Footnote that little three fifths thing will deal with it.

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Speaker 1: Writer. But even the articulation of that idea we don't

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Speaker 1: realize because we think that's just a normal idea. And

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Speaker 1: in fact they didn't go far enough. They didn't include women,

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Speaker 1: they didn't include black people. But even articulating that in

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Speaker 1: seventeen seventy six was quite a break, pretty radical from

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Speaker 1: how people thought. And I think in India you just

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Speaker 1: see very dramatically the naturalness in people's minds of human inequality.

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Speaker 1: People are naturally born at different levels people in many ways.

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Speaker 1: In a lot of Hindu traditions, people believe that you

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Speaker 1: deserve the station into which you're born. If you were

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Speaker 1: a humble servant, it's because you did something wrong in

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Speaker 1: a past life. I know people in my own family

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Speaker 1: who do heroic work taking care of the poor. But

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Speaker 1: you've asked them why they think those people who they

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Speaker 1: take care of are poor. They believe, deep down it's

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Speaker 1: because they did something wrong in a past life.

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Speaker 2: That seems like a fantastic mechanism for controlling the pores

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Speaker 2: to say, we're going to take this belief system and

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Speaker 2: impose it on you. And yeah, this may be a horrible, miserable,

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Speaker 2: low paying job, backbreaking job, but hey man, you learned it,

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Speaker 2: you did something, and now you've got to suffer the concept.

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Speaker 2: And it's almost puritanical to draw the parallel.

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Speaker 1: But there's also an incentive structure built into it, which is,

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Speaker 1: if you now spend this lowly poor existence doing good

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Speaker 1: thing well the next life, waiting, waiting on your superiors

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Speaker 1: with alacrity, you know, then you'll be born into a

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Speaker 1: higher station next time. And the reason I say all

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Speaker 1: that to you is when you said, how did it

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Speaker 1: imprint my view of other things? I grew up with

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Speaker 1: illusions in this country, in the United States that I

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Speaker 1: think many of us grew up with, or that in

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Speaker 1: an immigrant, upwardly mobile immigrant family. My family had this

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Speaker 1: notion of America country where you make your own destiny,

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Speaker 1: you rise as high as your merit can take you, etc.

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Speaker 1: And I think we didn't necessarily see the limits of

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Speaker 1: that truth in our own experience because we were fortunate,

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Speaker 1: and going to India radicalized me not only about India,

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Speaker 1: but it actually made me see America in a new way,

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Speaker 1: because what is true in India in the most dramatic

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Speaker 1: form is actually true everywhere. Most people in the world

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Speaker 1: do not, in fact make their destiny. Most people in

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Speaker 1: the world do not, in fact rise as far as

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Speaker 1: their merit can take them.

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Speaker 2: So let me push back, and I'm loving this conversation.

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Speaker 2: But when you look at feudal England and the monarchy like,

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Speaker 2: but what still is hanging around of the monarch system

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Speaker 2: and the lords and the nobles and the dukes and

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Speaker 2: all that stuff. There are remnants of it. There's some

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Speaker 2: persistence in landed gentry, but by and large it seems

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Speaker 2: from afar like the UK is a far more equitable

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Speaker 2: country today than it was five hundred years ago. What

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Speaker 2: I'm hearing from you about the cast system is not

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Speaker 2: only is this an overlay on modern India or an

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Speaker 2: underlay with modern India built on top, but at a

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Speaker 2: very first principles level philosophically, not a lot of people

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Speaker 2: are shrugging it off the way you see the monarchy

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Speaker 2: sort of being shrugged off in the UK.

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Speaker 1: The way I think about it is, I think there

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Speaker 1: is an arc and a continuum, right what Martin Luther

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Speaker 1: King talked about as the arc of the moral universe

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Speaker 1: from systems and structures of extreme hierarchy and extreme kind

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Speaker 1: of discarding of most people on one end, and then

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Speaker 1: on other end systems of imagine perfect equality, which of

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Speaker 1: course exists nowhere. I think there's no question that most

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Speaker 1: societies and I can think of have moved along the arc.

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Speaker 1: I think some places like the United States are much

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Speaker 1: further along the arc in certain ways than a place

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Speaker 1: like India, you know, large because of affluence. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's easier to empower people when you have an American

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Speaker 1: level of per capita GDP than an Indian level of

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Speaker 1: per capita GDP. But also there is a philosophical difference.

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Speaker 1: But I think in this country, in the United States,

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Speaker 1: we over believe our story that people can just invent

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Speaker 1: themselves to their chosen level. It's not that it doesn't

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Speaker 1: happen for anyone. It happens for actually millions and millions

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Speaker 1: of people. And that's remarkable. That's a new thing in

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Speaker 1: the world. In America actually in the mid twentieth century

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Speaker 1: built that and it felt like a new thing in

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Speaker 1: the world. The idea that you know, average people could

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Speaker 1: you know, go to college, get a nice house in

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Speaker 1: the suburbs. But of course it was mostly white people.

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Speaker 1: But there was a new idea in this country that

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Speaker 1: you know, that the regular person could could rise. But

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Speaker 1: I think in more recent decades we've also just become

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Speaker 1: more aware of the limitations of that and all the

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Speaker 1: people for whom that doesn't feel like a true story.

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Speaker 2: Huh. Really quite fascinating. How long? How long were you

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Speaker 2: writing for The New York Times?

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Speaker 1: For so I started then in India in two thousand

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Speaker 1: and five, and I continued for eleven years. So first,

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Speaker 1: you know, four and a half years in India. Wrote

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Speaker 1: my first book about India at the end of that

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Speaker 1: time in India, and in the writing of that book,

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Speaker 1: I decided that writing books is what I wanted to do.

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Speaker 1: You know, I hadn't I hadn't tried it yet. So

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Speaker 1: I've been writing, you know, newspaper articles for The Times

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Speaker 1: about India and social transformation in India, human stories. And

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Speaker 1: then there was something about going deep in a book,

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Speaker 1: thinking about the same thing in the shower every day

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Speaker 1: for three years, that instead of a different thing in

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Speaker 1: the shower every day for three years. That really appealed

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Speaker 1: to me. So I decided that was kind of going

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Speaker 1: to be my focus. So I continued after that time

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Speaker 1: to write a column a once in two week kind

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Speaker 1: of easy, easy, one day, you know, one day every

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Speaker 1: two weeks of my time a column just to kind

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Speaker 1: of stay engaged, but kind of pivoted to books and

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Speaker 1: have have been writing books as my kind of main

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Speaker 1: thing ever since.

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Speaker 2: You briefly taught narrative journalism at New York University. Looking

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Speaker 2: at your background BA in history at at University of

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Speaker 2: Michigan and some doctoral studies at Harvard, you could have

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Speaker 2: very easily become an academic, which is a fairly comfortable lifestyle.

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Speaker 2: Did that ever hold any appeal or.

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Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting you ask in that in between

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Speaker 1: period of leaving India, winding down my full time job

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Speaker 1: at the New York Times, finishing that first book. In

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Speaker 1: between them, that's when I was when I went to

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Speaker 1: grad school, and I think at that there was a

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Speaker 1: moment when I was looking at all three right, newspapers

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Speaker 1: at the kind of highest level of immediacy, academia at

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Speaker 1: the kind of lowest level of immediacy and reflection, and

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Speaker 1: then this kind of book public facing book writing as

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Speaker 1: sort of in between the two, and I really held

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Speaker 1: all three as options kind of around the time I

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Speaker 1: was turning thirty, and as I progressed and wrote the book,

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Speaker 1: I realized a couple of things. One, as I said

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Speaker 1: that I think the newspaper writing felt it felt very

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Speaker 1: come and go. It just felt like you would really

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Speaker 1: work on these things and then everybody would talk about

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Speaker 1: them if you were very lucky, for like an hour

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Speaker 1: and then and then it was just gone. And some

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Speaker 1: of the most beautiful things I still feel. I ever

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Speaker 1: wrote when I was in my twenties in India that

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Speaker 1: human stories India like it's just not part of the

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Speaker 1: culture anymore in a way that books really last. So

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Speaker 1: I was drawn to books. And I did try the

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Speaker 1: academic thing by going to grad school, and to be

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Speaker 1: honest without being rude, it kind of disgusted me in

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Speaker 1: a way. And what I mean by that is I

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Speaker 1: was not in theoretical physics or something like that. I

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Speaker 1: was in the government department at Harvard, which is what

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Speaker 1: they call, you know, politics or political science. And I

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Speaker 1: have never met we now would understand that time into

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Speaker 1: two thousand and nine, ten eleven, you know, there's a

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Speaker 1: time when there was a big unraveling already going on

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Speaker 1: after the financial crisis. Democracy. I think you could now

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Speaker 1: trace back some of the democratic unraveling we've since seen,

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Speaker 1: you know, to trace it back to those years big

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Speaker 1: things were happening in the country, the tea part, and

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Speaker 1: it was a group of people who often seemed completely

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Speaker 1: removed from the actual experience of what was happening in

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Speaker 1: the country, like everything was turned into regression analysis of

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Speaker 1: kind of trivial questions. And the people in that department,

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Speaker 1: and there were several who really did engage in the society,

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Speaker 1: were sort of made fun of behind their backs, the

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Speaker 1: not famous ones and also some of the famous ones,

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Speaker 1: like some of the ones who are who you and

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Speaker 1: I would know their names, but they actually did not

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Speaker 1: have the respect of anybody in the building, like they

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Speaker 1: were the They were the kind of runts of the

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Speaker 1: litter in that world right to have, you know, I

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Speaker 1: don't mind mentioning one of them who I deeply admire,

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Speaker 1: Michael Sendel. You know, this is a guy who teaches

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Speaker 1: this course on justice, biggest, one of the biggest courses

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Speaker 1: at Harvard, nine hundred people or something. But he also

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Speaker 1: started spreading this to China, and he's somehow despite the

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Speaker 1: Chinese government, he got like millions of people to take

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Speaker 1: this course I think on law YouTube. Yeah, because it

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Speaker 1: was these kind of abstract concepts of justice and it

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Speaker 1: didn't get into you know, democracy, Like he found a

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Speaker 1: way to sneak like like a course on like Western

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Speaker 1: philosophy and political theory into like, I can't think of

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Speaker 1: something more admirable that you should do if you're like

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Speaker 1: a fancy professor at Harvard. And I remember people talk

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Speaker 1: about him as like not a serious academic really, and

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Speaker 1: I was just like, this is the opposite of my

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Speaker 1: moral compass, like and last example.

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Speaker 2: But before you move on from that, you're reminding me

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Speaker 2: of I'm gonna I'm gonna mangle this quote. Maybe it'll

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Speaker 2: maybe it'll resonate with you. Why is academic politics so vicious?

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Speaker 2: And the answer is because it's so meaningless, right, and

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Speaker 2: and that sort of penniness seems like it's along those lines.

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Speaker 2: You know, people have this odd way of projecting their

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Speaker 2: own failures and insecurities onto others. I'm a big student

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Speaker 2: of behavioral finance, and you look at the decision making

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Speaker 2: process and it's just full of cognitive errors. But I

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Speaker 2: got to ask one other question related to the academic side.

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Speaker 2: It wasn't the teaching and the students, it was everything

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Speaker 2: around it that you found problem.

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Speaker 1: At It was the lack of engagement in the world.

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Speaker 1: American democracy has been coming apart, and this was a

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Speaker 1: political science slash government department, and it was.

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Speaker 2: Much more than the admin headaches. No, it was they

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Speaker 2: were in a like a even at Harvard, it's a

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Speaker 2: backwater that's not connected to reality.

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Speaker 1: Even at Harvard, I think Harvard is like off the

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Speaker 1: charts connected to like the contemporary world. And of course

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Speaker 1: there's parts of Harvard that are very engaged in the world.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 1: I was not at the Kennedy School, but it just

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Speaker 1: seemed to me in a moment when American democracy was

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Speaker 1: bursting at the seams, it didn't feel to most people

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Speaker 1: around me in that world like it was the project

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Speaker 1: of thinkers and scholars and theorists and data scientists at

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Speaker 1: Harvard's political hub to think about how to save the country,

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Speaker 1: to think about how to rescue the world from authoritarianism.

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Speaker 1: It just felt like it just felt like regression. Analysis

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Speaker 1: of trivialities and the people the exceptions Michael Sandels, they

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Speaker 1: had a scotchpow others who are doing the best work

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Speaker 1: out there. The snide comments about them by others just

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Speaker 1: made me realize what I value here is not what

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Speaker 1: is valued.

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Speaker 2: So let me get a little ahead of myself and

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Speaker 2: bring a question from a latter section forward. It's pretty

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Speaker 2: obvious today, with the benefit of hindsight, that you could

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Speaker 2: draw a straight line from the financial crisis and the

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Speaker 2: rescue of the banks to the detriment of homeowners, mortgage holders,

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Speaker 2: the average person in the street. There's a straight line

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Speaker 2: from that to the rise of popular authoritarianism. Let me

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Speaker 2: cut to the chase. Why did we miss so much

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Speaker 2: of that? Well, why did so many of us miss

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Speaker 2: that in real time as it was happening.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you know at my newsletter, which you are kind

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Speaker 1: enough to mention the ink. We've been doing a lot

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Speaker 1: on with twenty twenty four trying to pull back and

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Speaker 1: understand why this is happening to our democracy right, not

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Speaker 1: just the day to day, not just who's up and

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Speaker 1: down in New Hampshire, but what has been happening to

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Speaker 1: our democracy that we are in this kind of condition right,

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Speaker 1: Because you know, when you have a kind of cancer,

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Speaker 1: the way our body politic does. Now there's the immediate

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Speaker 1: question of what do you do tomorrow, But there's also

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Speaker 1: the question of what is the context in which this

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Speaker 1: became possible? And I think the financial crisis story is

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Speaker 1: so important because I think there are really two things

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Speaker 1: to me that converged in this authoritarian moment in the

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Speaker 1: weakening of our democratic order. One is when there's enormous

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Speaker 1: social change, as there has been, I would argue positive

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Speaker 1: social change the first side of the ledgers like positive

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Speaker 1: stuff change in progress and gender progress, in racial inclusion,

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Speaker 1: you know, shifting demographics and and a kind of a

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Speaker 1: bigger WII in this country. Those kind of changes discombobulate

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Speaker 1: people and cause people to sometimes feel you know, there's

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Speaker 1: that old frame when you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels

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Speaker 1: like oppression if you're not used to it, right, you

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Speaker 1: feel like, hey, hold on, as a white guy, why

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Speaker 1: am I? And it's actually totally surmountable, right, as I'm

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Speaker 1: sure you would attest, Like a whole bunch of white guys,

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Speaker 1: whole bunch of white people, whole bunch of men figured

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Speaker 1: it out. Figure out that you know what, I used

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Speaker 1: to be able to pinch someone in the office and

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Speaker 1: we don't do that in this decade anymore. And like,

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Speaker 1: millions of people still completely successfully adjust to that, right,

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Speaker 1: millions of people completely adjust to you know what, I

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Speaker 1: never thought about race. I never thought about who was

437
00:22:44,359 --> 00:22:46,120
Speaker 1: talking in a meeting, But I'm aware of that now.

438
00:22:46,280 --> 00:22:49,600
Speaker 1: But millions of people find it harder to sometimes make

439
00:22:49,640 --> 00:22:52,880
Speaker 1: those adjustments. And so when you have enormous social progress

440
00:22:52,880 --> 00:22:56,919
Speaker 1: and change and you don't have a real plan for

441
00:22:57,000 --> 00:23:00,880
Speaker 1: helping the people who are more discombobulated by it, unsettled

442
00:23:00,880 --> 00:23:02,439
Speaker 1: by it, you don't have a plan for helping them

443
00:23:02,640 --> 00:23:05,880
Speaker 1: think through it, figure it themselves out. That creates one

444
00:23:06,160 --> 00:23:09,399
Speaker 1: enormous source of weakness for democracy. And second to the

445
00:23:09,400 --> 00:23:15,880
Speaker 1: financial crisis point, when you have big events and people

446
00:23:15,920 --> 00:23:20,440
Speaker 1: are hurt and democracy does not deliver for them, does

447
00:23:20,520 --> 00:23:22,960
Speaker 1: not do the thing it is supposed to do, which

448
00:23:23,000 --> 00:23:27,920
Speaker 1: is make their life better through their choosing, that really

449
00:23:27,960 --> 00:23:29,639
Speaker 1: pisses people off. So so, now, if you think of

450
00:23:29,680 --> 00:23:34,080
Speaker 1: the era we've lived in story number one, enormous social progress,

451
00:23:34,320 --> 00:23:37,800
Speaker 1: people dislocated, right, it's been just this remarkable era of

452
00:23:37,920 --> 00:23:42,520
Speaker 1: change and gender in race, in LGBT rights, in demographics.

453
00:23:43,000 --> 00:23:46,960
Speaker 1: Story number two, it's been the era of you know, Iraq,

454
00:23:48,000 --> 00:23:55,560
Speaker 1: Hurricane Katrina, the financial crisis, COVID, twenty year wars against

455
00:23:55,880 --> 00:24:01,760
Speaker 1: ragtag militaries that we can't win COVID for sure. Again

456
00:24:01,800 --> 00:24:07,600
Speaker 1: and again, people have seen their Civics class bravado not

457
00:24:07,720 --> 00:24:10,439
Speaker 1: come true. This idea that we all learned in seventh

458
00:24:10,480 --> 00:24:13,480
Speaker 1: grade that like if people choose their leaders and George

459
00:24:13,520 --> 00:24:16,639
Speaker 1: Washington blah blah blah, and it hasn't come true for people.

460
00:24:17,240 --> 00:24:21,600
Speaker 1: Like if you were living in New Orleans in two

461
00:24:21,640 --> 00:24:25,520
Speaker 1: thousand and five, do you think your Civics lesson about

462
00:24:25,520 --> 00:24:29,560
Speaker 1: how democracy is the best system for giving people the

463
00:24:29,600 --> 00:24:31,199
Speaker 1: world they want? Do you think that rings true to you?

464
00:24:31,720 --> 00:24:35,639
Speaker 1: Like if your son died in Iraq, or you had

465
00:24:35,720 --> 00:24:39,960
Speaker 1: multiple children die in Iraq, do you think the notion

466
00:24:40,119 --> 00:24:44,160
Speaker 1: that democracy is this self correcting force where people realize

467
00:24:44,200 --> 00:24:50,520
Speaker 1: something's going You know, if you were in COVID and

468
00:24:51,640 --> 00:24:54,879
Speaker 1: seeing just lots of people die who didn't have to

469
00:24:54,920 --> 00:24:59,000
Speaker 1: die because public health guidance wasn't clear, or the president

470
00:24:59,080 --> 00:25:04,440
Speaker 1: was drinking bleach or whatever else, you haven't really experienced

471
00:25:04,680 --> 00:25:07,360
Speaker 1: democracy delivering. President Biden said this early in his term,

472
00:25:07,480 --> 00:25:11,120
Speaker 1: we have to prove to people that democracy works. When

473
00:25:11,160 --> 00:25:12,480
Speaker 1: I was growing up in this country. I don't know

474
00:25:12,480 --> 00:25:13,240
Speaker 1: about you, no one.

475
00:25:13,280 --> 00:25:15,240
Speaker 2: That was an assumption, that was just a given right.

476
00:25:15,520 --> 00:25:19,520
Speaker 1: But he's right. And the reason he said that is

477
00:25:19,600 --> 00:25:23,000
Speaker 1: because it is no longer self evident to people because

478
00:25:23,000 --> 00:25:24,920
Speaker 1: of things like the financial crisis.

479
00:25:25,000 --> 00:25:27,200
Speaker 2: So let me give you a little bit of pushback

480
00:25:27,240 --> 00:25:31,159
Speaker 2: on that. And here's what some of the academics would say.

481
00:25:31,800 --> 00:25:37,879
Speaker 2: Democracy works when people vote. And we are recording this

482
00:25:38,160 --> 00:25:43,920
Speaker 2: late in January, where just after the Iowa primaries where

483
00:25:44,040 --> 00:25:48,240
Speaker 2: something like five percent of the population cast to vote.

484
00:25:48,400 --> 00:25:50,720
Speaker 2: All right, but that's a caucus. When we look at

485
00:25:50,760 --> 00:25:55,400
Speaker 2: the broad presidential elections, the US has amongst the worst

486
00:25:55,920 --> 00:25:58,800
Speaker 2: voter participation. And I don't want to blame the victim

487
00:25:58,800 --> 00:26:00,840
Speaker 2: and I don't want to cast a spur that way,

488
00:26:01,240 --> 00:26:06,920
Speaker 2: but democracy works when people are involved in the democratic process.

489
00:26:07,359 --> 00:26:11,240
Speaker 2: But when half of the eligible voters can't be bothered, well,

490
00:26:11,280 --> 00:26:15,040
Speaker 2: then you're just letting a small you know, the turning

491
00:26:15,119 --> 00:26:20,800
Speaker 2: of the minority, tell you exactly what you should do

492
00:26:20,880 --> 00:26:22,680
Speaker 2: instead of taking charge yourself.

493
00:26:23,480 --> 00:26:26,200
Speaker 1: Look, I think I would love to say I think

494
00:26:26,200 --> 00:26:29,560
Speaker 1: you're right. I mean, first of all, it's important to vote,

495
00:26:29,600 --> 00:26:31,600
Speaker 1: and the fact that about half of people do, even

496
00:26:31,600 --> 00:26:35,359
Speaker 1: in a moment when everything feels like it's at stake

497
00:26:35,359 --> 00:26:39,000
Speaker 1: and you could end up with a dictatorship if you

498
00:26:39,080 --> 00:26:42,360
Speaker 1: kind of go the wrong way. Look, I'm with you. However,

499
00:26:43,880 --> 00:26:47,399
Speaker 1: I think for all the people who do vote and

500
00:26:47,480 --> 00:26:49,800
Speaker 1: have voted, and who've heard that lecture from you know,

501
00:26:49,840 --> 00:26:53,359
Speaker 1: frustrated from Obama, don't boo vote whatever, and who came

502
00:26:53,400 --> 00:26:56,199
Speaker 1: out and did this and that, Okay, I think a

503
00:26:56,240 --> 00:27:00,240
Speaker 1: lot of them would say, I have what did I get?

504
00:27:01,560 --> 00:27:01,800
Speaker 2: Look?

505
00:27:01,920 --> 00:27:05,760
Speaker 1: I am as My entire career from India onwards has

506
00:27:05,840 --> 00:27:09,280
Speaker 1: been in and around the question of democracy. I write

507
00:27:09,320 --> 00:27:11,439
Speaker 1: a lot about human beings and individual human stories, but

508
00:27:11,480 --> 00:27:15,919
Speaker 1: it's all. Democracy is my great abiding subject. I believe

509
00:27:15,920 --> 00:27:19,600
Speaker 1: in it. However, I think we have to reckon with

510
00:27:19,720 --> 00:27:22,800
Speaker 1: the fact that if it is not a self evident truth,

511
00:27:23,200 --> 00:27:28,120
Speaker 1: but in fact an evidence based truth that needs to

512
00:27:28,480 --> 00:27:32,280
Speaker 1: prove to people, as the President said, that it works,

513
00:27:32,480 --> 00:27:35,120
Speaker 1: that it's superior to what the Chinese are doing or whatever,

514
00:27:36,240 --> 00:27:38,200
Speaker 1: we have to make the case, and that case has

515
00:27:38,240 --> 00:27:42,280
Speaker 1: to be felt deeply in people's lives and in you're

516
00:27:42,320 --> 00:27:46,440
Speaker 1: in my lifetime. I think a great many Americans, including

517
00:27:46,520 --> 00:27:52,520
Speaker 1: Americans who vote, can't be faulted for feeling that when

518
00:27:53,680 --> 00:27:57,240
Speaker 1: things got dire and they needed help, there was no

519
00:27:57,320 --> 00:28:00,960
Speaker 1: government there. The government did not help. Democracy did not deliver.

520
00:28:01,359 --> 00:28:05,840
Speaker 2: H really quite fascinating. I want to start talking about winners.

521
00:28:05,960 --> 00:28:11,520
Speaker 2: Take all. This is really kind of a fascinating story,

522
00:28:12,040 --> 00:28:15,359
Speaker 2: and I have to start by asking which are the

523
00:28:15,480 --> 00:28:19,439
Speaker 2: winners you describe? This isn't the top ten percent or

524
00:28:19,480 --> 00:28:22,600
Speaker 2: the top one percent. This is like the zero point

525
00:28:22,760 --> 00:28:26,119
Speaker 2: zero one percent that really ruled the world.

526
00:28:26,400 --> 00:28:31,480
Speaker 1: Absolutely. This is a book about people I would you know,

527
00:28:31,640 --> 00:28:35,480
Speaker 1: call plutocrats. And the word plutocrats is sort of you know,

528
00:28:35,760 --> 00:28:38,320
Speaker 1: the first part of the word is pluto money, rich, wealth,

529
00:28:38,760 --> 00:28:45,560
Speaker 1: and the second is ruling, like democrat. Plutocrat is someone

530
00:28:45,600 --> 00:28:50,880
Speaker 1: who rules governs us through their wealth. And so this

531
00:28:50,960 --> 00:28:55,080
Speaker 1: is a book about a class of very wealthy and

532
00:28:55,080 --> 00:28:59,200
Speaker 1: powerful people, the billionaire class, you could say. And it's

533
00:28:59,240 --> 00:29:06,400
Speaker 1: a story of how this billionaire class has amassed extraordinary

534
00:29:06,480 --> 00:29:10,400
Speaker 1: wealth and power, which is something people know in part,

535
00:29:10,520 --> 00:29:13,320
Speaker 1: and this is the twist, and what I tried to

536
00:29:13,360 --> 00:29:19,480
Speaker 1: break some ground on in part by using the appearance

537
00:29:20,000 --> 00:29:23,640
Speaker 1: of giving back, of doing good, of making a difference,

538
00:29:23,680 --> 00:29:26,959
Speaker 1: of philanthropy, of impact investing, of all these things that

539
00:29:27,000 --> 00:29:30,040
Speaker 1: we talk about these days. The argument of the book

540
00:29:30,040 --> 00:29:34,320
Speaker 1: is that the richest, most powerful people use giving back

541
00:29:34,560 --> 00:29:37,360
Speaker 1: and taking care of society as a kind of ruse

542
00:29:37,440 --> 00:29:43,200
Speaker 1: and a distraction to continue and intensify their grabbing of

543
00:29:43,280 --> 00:29:49,400
Speaker 1: wealth and power, and essentially have pulled off this brilliant

544
00:29:49,440 --> 00:29:53,480
Speaker 1: trick of convincing lots of regular people that the billionaire

545
00:29:53,480 --> 00:29:57,400
Speaker 1: class holds the answers to the problems they are still

546
00:29:57,400 --> 00:30:01,520
Speaker 1: actively causing, that they are the solution to the problem

547
00:30:01,560 --> 00:30:02,560
Speaker 1: that they represent.

548
00:30:02,760 --> 00:30:06,200
Speaker 2: So let's let's break that down a bit. And some

549
00:30:06,240 --> 00:30:08,560
Speaker 2: of this is a little controversial, So I'm gonna I'm

550
00:30:08,560 --> 00:30:12,280
Speaker 2: gonna put your feet to the fire. Hey has always

551
00:30:12,280 --> 00:30:16,800
Speaker 2: been ultra wealthy, the Rockefellers, the Gettys, go back to

552
00:30:17,280 --> 00:30:20,800
Speaker 2: you know, the Norman Kings and what happened in France.

553
00:30:21,320 --> 00:30:23,960
Speaker 2: The wealthy have always been here with us, whether it's

554
00:30:24,000 --> 00:30:28,600
Speaker 2: Henry Ford or Thomas Edison, They'll always be here with us.

555
00:30:28,960 --> 00:30:30,320
Speaker 2: What's different about today?

556
00:30:31,000 --> 00:30:32,880
Speaker 1: You're absolutely right, and in fact, one of the you know,

557
00:30:32,960 --> 00:30:35,840
Speaker 1: I think there's something old and constant in the book

558
00:30:35,880 --> 00:30:37,600
Speaker 1: and something new. I think the old and constant thing

559
00:30:37,640 --> 00:30:41,440
Speaker 1: is there's always, as you say, a ruling elite financially

560
00:30:43,240 --> 00:30:45,920
Speaker 1: And what is also a constant throughout history is ruling

561
00:30:45,960 --> 00:30:51,760
Speaker 1: elites always invent a story that, by the way, has

562
00:30:51,800 --> 00:30:54,160
Speaker 1: to be believed, not just by them, because then it

563
00:30:54,160 --> 00:30:57,240
Speaker 1: wouldn't work. It has to be believed by everybody about

564
00:30:57,240 --> 00:31:01,600
Speaker 1: why it is best to let them continue being ruling elite. Right,

565
00:31:01,920 --> 00:31:08,720
Speaker 1: so Southern planters, plantation owners, and slave owners and enslavers

566
00:31:08,760 --> 00:31:13,520
Speaker 1: of people in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries couldn't just

567
00:31:14,240 --> 00:31:17,840
Speaker 1: run their businesses. It was very, very important to invent

568
00:31:18,440 --> 00:31:23,560
Speaker 1: a story of racism, about the naturalness of white superiority

569
00:31:23,560 --> 00:31:26,920
Speaker 1: and the naturalness of black inferiority. If you didn't invent

570
00:31:27,000 --> 00:31:30,000
Speaker 1: that story, and by the way, convince a certain number

571
00:31:30,080 --> 00:31:33,240
Speaker 1: of people who were not white of the truth of

572
00:31:33,280 --> 00:31:34,840
Speaker 1: that story, and a certain number of people who were

573
00:31:34,880 --> 00:31:37,160
Speaker 1: not rich white people but were poor, if you didn't

574
00:31:37,840 --> 00:31:41,840
Speaker 1: have lots of people believe the story about that ruling

575
00:31:41,920 --> 00:31:45,320
Speaker 1: order being the best possible ruling order, it would fall apart. Right,

576
00:31:45,640 --> 00:31:50,600
Speaker 1: Racism had to be invented to help prop up that

577
00:31:50,680 --> 00:31:53,080
Speaker 1: kind of regime. Well, the Indian cast system has its story,

578
00:31:53,120 --> 00:31:57,600
Speaker 1: and the British feudal time had its story. Every ruling

579
00:31:57,600 --> 00:32:01,240
Speaker 1: system has its story. The argument of this book is that. Yes,

580
00:32:01,320 --> 00:32:04,600
Speaker 1: that's a constant. And I'm trying to unpack what that

581
00:32:04,720 --> 00:32:07,120
Speaker 1: story is now, and I think it's a different story

582
00:32:07,920 --> 00:32:12,600
Speaker 1: the past stories. It is not. This is natural. It's

583
00:32:12,640 --> 00:32:15,360
Speaker 1: not inequality as naturally you can't say that, right, No

584
00:32:15,480 --> 00:32:17,800
Speaker 1: rich person can go out and say I deserve to

585
00:32:17,840 --> 00:32:19,440
Speaker 1: be here and you all deserve to be the poorest.

586
00:32:19,520 --> 00:32:22,520
Speaker 1: Right that stories of old story wouldn't work now. So

587
00:32:22,600 --> 00:32:25,080
Speaker 1: a lot of the old stories have gone out the window.

588
00:32:25,080 --> 00:32:26,960
Speaker 1: You can't say them anymore. And so I was trying

589
00:32:27,000 --> 00:32:28,680
Speaker 1: to explain what the news story is, and I think

590
00:32:28,720 --> 00:32:30,959
Speaker 1: the new story is, Yes, I may have more than

591
00:32:31,000 --> 00:32:34,680
Speaker 1: everybody else. Yes, these inequalities may be savage and corrosive

592
00:32:34,720 --> 00:32:39,320
Speaker 1: to the social order. However, I, as a rich person

593
00:32:39,600 --> 00:32:43,960
Speaker 1: have a unique ability to also heal this society by

594
00:32:43,960 --> 00:32:47,800
Speaker 1: giving back. And if you cramp my style, if you

595
00:32:47,920 --> 00:32:52,520
Speaker 1: tax my wealth, if you come after my business or regulation,

596
00:32:52,760 --> 00:32:55,840
Speaker 1: if you do X y Z on the policy side,

597
00:32:56,400 --> 00:32:59,520
Speaker 1: you are actually hurting the society. You are hurting regular

598
00:32:59,560 --> 00:33:05,280
Speaker 1: people because you're cramping my ability to eradicate diseases, to

599
00:33:06,600 --> 00:33:10,720
Speaker 1: help democracy, to go to the moon or Mars or whatever.

600
00:33:10,760 --> 00:33:15,120
Speaker 2: So these are all governmental responsibilities. That when the tax

601
00:33:15,160 --> 00:33:18,920
Speaker 2: base was higher, we did more of And what you're

602
00:33:19,120 --> 00:33:23,760
Speaker 2: implying in the book is primarily in the Reagan era

603
00:33:23,880 --> 00:33:28,040
Speaker 2: and beyond when we had both aggressive tax cuts and

604
00:33:28,080 --> 00:33:32,560
Speaker 2: then under Bill Clinton, where we had a cap on

605
00:33:33,440 --> 00:33:38,440
Speaker 2: dollar compensation for executives but lots of stock options. We

606
00:33:38,640 --> 00:33:42,440
Speaker 2: ended up creating a class of There's always been wealthy,

607
00:33:42,760 --> 00:33:45,920
Speaker 2: but the argument is we've now created a new class

608
00:33:46,320 --> 00:33:49,320
Speaker 2: of super wealthy that the world has never seen before. Yes,

609
00:33:49,440 --> 00:33:50,440
Speaker 2: fair statement, yep.

610
00:33:50,760 --> 00:33:52,360
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, going back one hundred years

611
00:33:52,360 --> 00:33:54,560
Speaker 1: when you really have the birth of modern philanthropy. As

612
00:33:54,560 --> 00:33:56,880
Speaker 1: I talk about in the book, people have always given money.

613
00:33:56,920 --> 00:34:00,000
Speaker 1: I mean in the Islamic religion, Christian religion, there's been

614
00:34:00,040 --> 00:34:03,600
Speaker 1: these commandments to give back, tithe whatever. A giving is

615
00:34:03,640 --> 00:34:07,760
Speaker 1: an old concept. But when I'm talking about philanthropy in

616
00:34:07,800 --> 00:34:09,680
Speaker 1: the way that you and I would think about gates

617
00:34:09,680 --> 00:34:12,439
Speaker 1: as philanthropy, that's a relatively new thing, about one hundred

618
00:34:12,520 --> 00:34:15,880
Speaker 1: years old, and the way political scientists define it is

619
00:34:16,000 --> 00:34:18,400
Speaker 1: kind of the birth with the Rockefellers and Carnegie of

620
00:34:18,400 --> 00:34:23,719
Speaker 1: others of fortunes that were so big that they were

621
00:34:23,800 --> 00:34:25,759
Speaker 1: kind of it was kind of like nation state level

622
00:34:25,800 --> 00:34:26,960
Speaker 1: money First of.

623
00:34:26,960 --> 00:34:29,879
Speaker 2: All, Ford Foundation, right, is a man still.

624
00:34:29,680 --> 00:34:32,279
Speaker 1: So like you if you have you know, you're a

625
00:34:32,320 --> 00:34:34,520
Speaker 1: successful guy. If you have a few hundred thousand dollars

626
00:34:34,560 --> 00:34:37,560
Speaker 1: you want to give to some cause you're not affecting

627
00:34:38,719 --> 00:34:40,759
Speaker 1: governance in New York City by doing that. You may

628
00:34:40,760 --> 00:34:43,440
Speaker 1: help some people, you may not, right, But if you

629
00:34:43,480 --> 00:34:45,120
Speaker 1: had like fifty billion.

630
00:34:44,800 --> 00:34:47,240
Speaker 2: Dollars to give away, you can move the needle.

631
00:34:47,480 --> 00:34:49,880
Speaker 1: But you but you might, but you could also like

632
00:34:50,040 --> 00:34:52,560
Speaker 1: break the needle. You could also just like lose the

633
00:34:52,600 --> 00:34:55,279
Speaker 1: needle in your coat pocket, like you like you could

634
00:34:55,360 --> 00:34:57,640
Speaker 1: make the needle go backwards, like if you had fifty

635
00:34:57,640 --> 00:35:00,719
Speaker 1: billion dollars and you you know, this is obviously a

636
00:35:00,800 --> 00:35:03,600
Speaker 1: real example. People like Bill Gates and you had, you know,

637
00:35:03,880 --> 00:35:07,759
Speaker 1: Barry's thoughts about education. There's the possibility that you could

638
00:35:07,760 --> 00:35:10,799
Speaker 1: make education better. And there's the possibility that you could

639
00:35:10,840 --> 00:35:19,080
Speaker 1: become our unelected, unchosen, illegitimate czar of education creating new

640
00:35:19,080 --> 00:35:21,799
Speaker 1: standards that are actually a mistake, you know that that

641
00:35:21,880 --> 00:35:24,440
Speaker 1: have all these unintended consequences. It could work or it

642
00:35:24,480 --> 00:35:26,640
Speaker 1: could not work. But the question is, like who the

643
00:35:26,640 --> 00:35:27,160
Speaker 1: heck is you?

644
00:35:27,560 --> 00:35:27,759
Speaker 2: Right?

645
00:35:28,080 --> 00:35:33,640
Speaker 1: And And the issue with modern billionaire philanthropy even when

646
00:35:33,719 --> 00:35:38,000
Speaker 1: it's well executed like Bill Gates's, and certainly when it's not,

647
00:35:38,560 --> 00:35:41,440
Speaker 1: like you know, others like Bill Gates really does want

648
00:35:41,440 --> 00:35:44,759
Speaker 1: to get rid of polio, right, He's devoted the second

649
00:35:44,800 --> 00:35:50,759
Speaker 1: half of his life to thinking about these problems. I

650
00:35:50,800 --> 00:35:53,600
Speaker 1: do not doubt his sincerity. Where something like GS Gibbs

651
00:35:54,360 --> 00:35:58,600
Speaker 1: was literally invented during the financial crisis, when it's marketing,

652
00:35:58,680 --> 00:36:02,320
Speaker 1: when there was like New York Times investigations how Goldman had.

653
00:36:02,239 --> 00:36:05,920
Speaker 2: Like so, let me ask you a more challenging question.

654
00:36:07,600 --> 00:36:10,680
Speaker 2: If the very wealthy want to give money to fight disease,

655
00:36:10,800 --> 00:36:12,520
Speaker 2: or they want to give to the symphony, or they

656
00:36:12,520 --> 00:36:16,000
Speaker 2: want to put public works, I don't really care about that.

657
00:36:16,160 --> 00:36:19,560
Speaker 2: Where I start to get concerned is where, through the

658
00:36:19,600 --> 00:36:26,080
Speaker 2: guise of tax exempt deductions, they begin to get very political.

659
00:36:26,520 --> 00:36:30,000
Speaker 2: So you have these think tanks that certainly don't have

660
00:36:30,920 --> 00:36:35,640
Speaker 2: the common man's best interest at heart, affecting legislation, affecting

661
00:36:35,640 --> 00:36:40,719
Speaker 2: who gets appointed as judges, affecting tax policy, and all

662
00:36:40,840 --> 00:36:45,200
Speaker 2: this comes under the guise of philanthropy, when really it's

663
00:36:45,239 --> 00:36:48,280
Speaker 2: a very And again some of this is specifically mentioned

664
00:36:49,040 --> 00:36:55,080
Speaker 2: in your book, very very specific tax exempt impact on

665
00:36:55,320 --> 00:37:00,279
Speaker 2: maintaining the status quo for the carried interest exemption and

666
00:37:00,320 --> 00:37:04,280
Speaker 2: the exemption on long term capital gains or the shorter

667
00:37:04,440 --> 00:37:07,480
Speaker 2: ta like, there's a lot of things that are described

668
00:37:07,520 --> 00:37:09,960
Speaker 2: as philanthropy, but it's really lobbying.

669
00:37:10,440 --> 00:37:12,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, look, I think you have to look at the

670
00:37:12,360 --> 00:37:19,560
Speaker 1: whole arc of this money. So I think the American

671
00:37:19,640 --> 00:37:23,200
Speaker 1: business model, kind of social business model, we've ended up with,

672
00:37:23,920 --> 00:37:27,880
Speaker 1: is telling business people that in phase one of your life,

673
00:37:28,600 --> 00:37:32,080
Speaker 1: you have to make as much money as possible, in

674
00:37:32,360 --> 00:37:37,120
Speaker 1: as ruthless and corner cutting away as possible. That's just

675
00:37:37,160 --> 00:37:41,239
Speaker 1: the norm, right, And a lot of the old kind

676
00:37:41,320 --> 00:37:44,879
Speaker 1: of what is now thought of as inefficiencies that were

677
00:37:44,920 --> 00:37:48,200
Speaker 1: in corporate America in the fifties, sixties and seventies really

678
00:37:48,239 --> 00:37:53,560
Speaker 1: got edged out by shareholder pressure, shareholder activism, the McKenzie

679
00:37:53,680 --> 00:37:58,080
Speaker 1: kind of revolution, etc. Where all slack was eliminated, right,

680
00:37:58,760 --> 00:38:02,359
Speaker 1: and that your janitor who might have been an employee

681
00:38:02,920 --> 00:38:06,640
Speaker 1: of your company in the fifties and sixties was now

682
00:38:06,719 --> 00:38:10,640
Speaker 1: a contractor of a contractor of a contractor, no health insurance,

683
00:38:11,840 --> 00:38:15,160
Speaker 1: nothing you know, can and just imagine that writ large

684
00:38:15,200 --> 00:38:19,480
Speaker 1: for the whole economy, every piece optimized, right, So that

685
00:38:19,640 --> 00:38:23,360
Speaker 1: happened and the lesson. I think for business people, the

686
00:38:24,040 --> 00:38:27,479
Speaker 1: message of the post Reagan era was cut every corner

687
00:38:27,560 --> 00:38:30,480
Speaker 1: you can you get legally or illegally in some cases,

688
00:38:31,200 --> 00:38:34,359
Speaker 1: pay as little as taxes in taxes as you can

689
00:38:34,400 --> 00:38:35,960
Speaker 1: possibly do. If you have to do double dutch with

690
00:38:36,000 --> 00:38:39,239
Speaker 1: an Irish sandwich or this and that, do that right.

691
00:38:39,280 --> 00:38:42,440
Speaker 1: Pay people as little as possible, take on as little

692
00:38:42,440 --> 00:38:44,959
Speaker 1: as risk. There's a book called the Great Risk Shift.

693
00:38:45,040 --> 00:38:48,400
Speaker 1: Shift as much risk onto workers and consumers as you

694
00:38:48,440 --> 00:38:51,640
Speaker 1: can so the corporation is not bearing the risk. And

695
00:38:51,680 --> 00:38:54,799
Speaker 1: then you'll make more money than you would make if

696
00:38:54,800 --> 00:38:56,759
Speaker 1: you didn't do all those things. Okay, that's phase one.

697
00:38:57,320 --> 00:39:03,480
Speaker 1: Phase two is now the Phase two starts with workers

698
00:39:03,520 --> 00:39:05,799
Speaker 1: being paid less than they would otherwise have been paid,

699
00:39:05,840 --> 00:39:08,840
Speaker 1: the commons in many ways being kind of starved, but

700
00:39:09,440 --> 00:39:13,160
Speaker 1: companies having more money. And then phase two is like, okay,

701
00:39:13,200 --> 00:39:16,480
Speaker 1: now get back. Now that you've made all this money,

702
00:39:16,520 --> 00:39:19,640
Speaker 1: maybe more money than you would have otherwise made, give

703
00:39:19,719 --> 00:39:23,400
Speaker 1: back and give to you know, after school programs for

704
00:39:23,440 --> 00:39:27,440
Speaker 1: boys and coloss here's the problem, right, Phase one of

705
00:39:27,480 --> 00:39:31,840
Speaker 1: your life in that model has has kind of created

706
00:39:31,960 --> 00:39:35,880
Speaker 1: these social problems. Or Phase one is why those kids

707
00:39:36,560 --> 00:39:39,600
Speaker 1: don't have a good education five days a week, and

708
00:39:39,640 --> 00:39:42,160
Speaker 1: then phase two you might give them a boys and

709
00:39:42,200 --> 00:39:45,080
Speaker 1: girls club to go to on Thursday afternoons. Right in

710
00:39:45,080 --> 00:39:48,359
Speaker 1: phase one, you are creating a world in which you

711
00:39:48,360 --> 00:39:52,560
Speaker 1: know there's not enough money for universal pre k or

712
00:39:52,600 --> 00:39:55,799
Speaker 1: there's not enough world for community college classes for people

713
00:39:55,800 --> 00:39:57,839
Speaker 1: to reinvent themselves, and they get laid off. And then

714
00:39:57,840 --> 00:40:00,600
Speaker 1: in phase two you're creating like a little progra for

715
00:40:00,680 --> 00:40:04,240
Speaker 1: like one hundred people in Appalachia to you know, transition

716
00:40:04,280 --> 00:40:05,040
Speaker 1: out of coal mining.

717
00:40:06,000 --> 00:40:07,280
Speaker 2: There's no symmetry though.

718
00:40:07,160 --> 00:40:12,520
Speaker 1: There's no symmetry, but the reality is is what is

719
00:40:12,600 --> 00:40:17,600
Speaker 1: done by operational daylight is just on a vaster scale,

720
00:40:17,920 --> 00:40:20,759
Speaker 1: infinitely vaster scale then what can be cleaned up by

721
00:40:20,840 --> 00:40:27,719
Speaker 1: philanthropic moonlight. However, the philanthropic moonlighting is marketed much more

722
00:40:27,719 --> 00:40:32,160
Speaker 1: heavily than what is done in operational daylight. Right, so

723
00:40:32,200 --> 00:40:36,000
Speaker 1: we don't really know except when we get occasional glimpses.

724
00:40:36,360 --> 00:40:40,960
Speaker 2: So let's talk about something that I'm intrigued about. In

725
00:40:41,040 --> 00:40:45,480
Speaker 2: the book, you discuss the concept of the rise of

726
00:40:45,640 --> 00:40:54,800
Speaker 2: thought leaders, displacing academic experts and public intellectuals, primarily driven

727
00:40:54,920 --> 00:40:59,719
Speaker 2: through non expertise selection. That we have this group of

728
00:41:00,600 --> 00:41:03,440
Speaker 2: I don't even want to call them experts, almost self

729
00:41:03,480 --> 00:41:08,120
Speaker 2: determined experts that very much are influencing policy in a

730
00:41:08,160 --> 00:41:11,600
Speaker 2: way that true experts might not explain.

731
00:41:12,040 --> 00:41:15,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have a chapter on the rise of the critics,

732
00:41:15,960 --> 00:41:18,239
Speaker 1: called the Critic and the thought Leader, and the rise

733
00:41:18,280 --> 00:41:21,480
Speaker 1: of the thought leader, as in the way that I

734
00:41:21,560 --> 00:41:25,399
Speaker 1: define it in the book, a kind of thinker who

735
00:41:25,440 --> 00:41:31,040
Speaker 1: is safe, who is deemed safe for the kind of

736
00:41:31,080 --> 00:41:35,280
Speaker 1: plutocratic establishment. And so it goes back to that notion

737
00:41:35,320 --> 00:41:39,000
Speaker 1: of ruling elites have to invent and nurture a story

738
00:41:39,040 --> 00:41:42,120
Speaker 1: that justifies their rule. And part of that is that

739
00:41:42,160 --> 00:41:46,880
Speaker 1: there are certain thinkers out there who are threatening to

740
00:41:47,520 --> 00:41:50,960
Speaker 1: the official story of the time, and there's other people

741
00:41:50,960 --> 00:41:52,480
Speaker 1: out there who are kind of willing to play ball

742
00:41:52,560 --> 00:41:56,120
Speaker 1: and spread ideas that are helpful to the ruling story

743
00:41:56,120 --> 00:41:56,520
Speaker 1: of the time.

744
00:41:56,640 --> 00:41:56,759
Speaker 2: Right.

745
00:41:56,840 --> 00:41:59,040
Speaker 1: So, if you think about pick one realm that I

746
00:41:59,080 --> 00:42:02,080
Speaker 1: write about in the book telling the story of Amy Cutty,

747
00:42:03,480 --> 00:42:06,960
Speaker 1: if you think about the area of the empowerment of

748
00:42:06,960 --> 00:42:13,239
Speaker 1: women feminism, issues with the workplace and the way workplaces

749
00:42:13,280 --> 00:42:19,560
Speaker 1: treat women, institutions treat women, there is a non plutocratic

750
00:42:19,840 --> 00:42:23,600
Speaker 1: friendly way of talking about that issue and advocating on

751
00:42:23,719 --> 00:42:26,520
Speaker 1: their issue, and there is a plutocratic friendly version, right,

752
00:42:26,560 --> 00:42:30,720
Speaker 1: So the non plutocratic friendly one is like real structural change,

753
00:42:32,000 --> 00:42:37,680
Speaker 1: whether policy things like you know, paid paid family leave

754
00:42:37,680 --> 00:42:42,080
Speaker 1: and medical leave, which so many women in the political

755
00:42:42,120 --> 00:42:46,040
Speaker 1: sphare have advocated for, or universal pre K and childcare

756
00:42:46,040 --> 00:42:48,359
Speaker 1: and things like that that would make it easier for many,

757
00:42:48,400 --> 00:42:53,840
Speaker 1: many women to juggle all their roles and obligations and aspirations.

758
00:42:55,080 --> 00:42:57,920
Speaker 1: Kinds of ideas that would really empower women have been

759
00:42:57,960 --> 00:43:01,359
Speaker 1: shown in other societies to have those effects, but are expensive, right,

760
00:43:01,560 --> 00:43:03,399
Speaker 1: the examples I just gave you all things that would

761
00:43:03,480 --> 00:43:07,919
Speaker 1: cost company's money, costs rich people money. Right, think about

762
00:43:07,920 --> 00:43:11,440
Speaker 1: the Elizabeth Warren campaign to cent wealth tax to fund

763
00:43:11,640 --> 00:43:14,120
Speaker 1: precisely those kinds of things. Well, that's a that's a

764
00:43:14,239 --> 00:43:18,359
Speaker 1: kind of way of empowering women that is not does

765
00:43:18,440 --> 00:43:23,560
Speaker 1: not thrill the plutocrats. Okay, now here's another. Here's something

766
00:43:23,600 --> 00:43:26,160
Speaker 1: they like more lean in, right, I mean one of them,

767
00:43:26,160 --> 00:43:27,560
Speaker 1: a plutocrat herself.

768
00:43:27,239 --> 00:43:29,839
Speaker 2: Wrote literally that book, that's the title.

769
00:43:29,760 --> 00:43:32,960
Speaker 1: Cheryl Sandberg's book, right, And what was the argument that actually,

770
00:43:33,120 --> 00:43:37,080
Speaker 1: very much within this system we have, if women just

771
00:43:37,400 --> 00:43:39,560
Speaker 1: leaned in, raised their hand more tried to be more

772
00:43:39,560 --> 00:43:40,520
Speaker 1: assertive at the meeting.

773
00:43:40,719 --> 00:43:42,239
Speaker 2: Hey, I did it goodn't you?

774
00:43:42,360 --> 00:43:42,800
Speaker 1: Correct?

775
00:43:43,200 --> 00:43:43,399
Speaker 2: Right?

776
00:43:43,960 --> 00:43:44,520
Speaker 1: I help?

777
00:43:44,600 --> 00:43:46,160
Speaker 2: That's kind of an arrogant statement.

778
00:43:46,200 --> 00:43:48,600
Speaker 1: I helped just I helped rise. I rose to the

779
00:43:48,640 --> 00:43:52,440
Speaker 1: top and helped destroy American democracy. Any any sister can

780
00:43:52,480 --> 00:43:52,960
Speaker 1: do it too.

781
00:43:53,280 --> 00:43:53,560
Speaker 2: Yeah.

782
00:43:55,280 --> 00:43:57,759
Speaker 1: And so you look at this kind of Cheryl Sandberg's

783
00:43:57,840 --> 00:44:02,759
Speaker 1: lean in idea as like, Wow, that is costless empowerment

784
00:44:02,760 --> 00:44:05,960
Speaker 1: of women. That is a way of empowering women that

785
00:44:06,120 --> 00:44:10,919
Speaker 1: literally would cost the wealthy establishment nothing.

786
00:44:10,800 --> 00:44:13,719
Speaker 2: As opposed to an equal rights amendment that mandates the

787
00:44:13,800 --> 00:44:17,200
Speaker 2: same salary for the same job, correct sog.

788
00:44:17,440 --> 00:44:18,480
Speaker 1: So what do you think is going to be on

789
00:44:18,520 --> 00:44:22,719
Speaker 1: the main stage of TED? Which which talks do you

790
00:44:22,719 --> 00:44:24,000
Speaker 1: think are going to be given? You think at the

791
00:44:24,000 --> 00:44:27,520
Speaker 1: Clinton Global Initiative there's going to be a talk about

792
00:44:27,960 --> 00:44:31,640
Speaker 1: how the kinds of wealthy donors that donate to the

793
00:44:31,640 --> 00:44:32,400
Speaker 1: Clinton Foundation.

794
00:44:32,440 --> 00:44:34,400
Speaker 2: So I'm so glad you brought that up, because that's

795
00:44:34,480 --> 00:44:39,640
Speaker 2: what I've been thinking about. Once you start accepting donations

796
00:44:39,680 --> 00:44:44,839
Speaker 2: from outside parties, does that mean you lose your academic

797
00:44:44,880 --> 00:44:49,279
Speaker 2: freedom and now you're beholden to whatever belief system they

798
00:44:49,360 --> 00:44:51,840
Speaker 2: want to push? Is there is there a way around

799
00:44:51,840 --> 00:44:53,000
Speaker 2: that or it's just.

800
00:44:52,920 --> 00:44:54,520
Speaker 1: There is actually and I think this is not as

801
00:44:54,520 --> 00:44:57,359
Speaker 1: hard a problem as it as it seems like. I mean,

802
00:44:57,360 --> 00:45:02,359
Speaker 1: we have lots of institutions that do take money from

803
00:45:02,360 --> 00:45:08,319
Speaker 1: wealthy people and somehow have some norms around protecting the

804
00:45:08,360 --> 00:45:09,279
Speaker 1: integrity of the work.

805
00:45:09,560 --> 00:45:09,880
Speaker 2: Right.

806
00:45:10,040 --> 00:45:15,319
Speaker 1: So, I mean, the New York Times has advertising, you know,

807
00:45:15,360 --> 00:45:17,400
Speaker 1: I think you could make some comments at the margins

808
00:45:17,440 --> 00:45:21,600
Speaker 1: that you know, the housing section has more about fancy

809
00:45:21,640 --> 00:45:24,480
Speaker 1: life than it does about right right. But in general,

810
00:45:24,920 --> 00:45:26,799
Speaker 1: I think most people who advertise the New York Times,

811
00:45:26,840 --> 00:45:28,200
Speaker 1: who work in the New York Times, who read the

812
00:45:28,200 --> 00:45:31,600
Speaker 1: New York Times would generally understand that like Gucci just

813
00:45:31,640 --> 00:45:34,080
Speaker 1: because it buys an ad is not placing a call

814
00:45:34,160 --> 00:45:36,880
Speaker 1: to an editor and saying I want this story. Like

815
00:45:36,960 --> 00:45:38,839
Speaker 1: that's not how the New York Times works. People are

816
00:45:38,840 --> 00:45:41,320
Speaker 1: going to listen to this thinking I'm crazy, Like it's really.

817
00:45:41,239 --> 00:45:42,400
Speaker 2: There's a firewall.

818
00:45:42,480 --> 00:45:45,400
Speaker 1: There's a firewall. It's a pretty well star firewall, like

819
00:45:45,560 --> 00:45:48,239
Speaker 1: in these universities, right, even the best universities. I mean

820
00:45:48,280 --> 00:45:51,480
Speaker 1: they you know, there's this whole issues with donors and

821
00:45:51,480 --> 00:45:55,319
Speaker 1: these centers. But like the average professor mm hmm. At

822
00:45:55,360 --> 00:45:57,600
Speaker 1: these years, we've built a pretty good system of the

823
00:45:57,640 --> 00:46:02,360
Speaker 1: average professor being relatively insulated from what donors want. And

824
00:46:02,400 --> 00:46:04,360
Speaker 1: part of what is so bizarre right now with the

825
00:46:04,400 --> 00:46:07,480
Speaker 1: bill Ackmans of the world is like they're trying to

826
00:46:07,560 --> 00:46:10,840
Speaker 1: maybe should In other words, we have institutions that have

827
00:46:10,880 --> 00:46:13,120
Speaker 1: a pretty good record of being able to take money,

828
00:46:13,160 --> 00:46:15,960
Speaker 1: whether you whatever you think about that and building some

829
00:46:16,000 --> 00:46:19,800
Speaker 1: culture and norms. I never met an advertiser once, or

830
00:46:19,840 --> 00:46:22,480
Speaker 1: spoke to an advertiser once, or spoke to anybody in

831
00:46:22,520 --> 00:46:24,520
Speaker 1: the advertising department of the New York Times once when

832
00:46:24,520 --> 00:46:26,719
Speaker 1: I worked there for eleven years. Like those are just

833
00:46:26,800 --> 00:46:28,680
Speaker 1: not conversations that happen.

834
00:46:28,640 --> 00:46:31,879
Speaker 2: But in the modern world. And we haven't talked about

835
00:46:31,960 --> 00:46:35,400
Speaker 2: the Koch brothers yet, but you look at the Mercato School,

836
00:46:35,440 --> 00:46:40,640
Speaker 2: you look at a lot of donations specifically to institutions

837
00:46:40,680 --> 00:46:43,160
Speaker 2: in academia that come with.

838
00:46:43,440 --> 00:46:45,920
Speaker 1: Absolutely and that's becoming more and more than norm My

839
00:46:45,920 --> 00:46:49,200
Speaker 1: only point is some places have solved this problem, and

840
00:46:49,239 --> 00:46:50,040
Speaker 1: we should look at it.

841
00:46:50,120 --> 00:46:50,279
Speaker 2: Right.

842
00:46:50,719 --> 00:46:54,400
Speaker 1: I think you could have, you know, conferences of ideas

843
00:46:55,080 --> 00:46:57,600
Speaker 1: that that fine, take money from rich people, and you

844
00:46:57,640 --> 00:47:03,120
Speaker 1: could create some kind of firewall, norms whatever, and learn

845
00:47:03,160 --> 00:47:05,960
Speaker 1: from the New York Times. I don't think people have

846
00:47:06,000 --> 00:47:08,400
Speaker 1: figured out how to do that, but the answer is

847
00:47:08,440 --> 00:47:12,400
Speaker 1: there is. I'm just suggesting. Look, I would prefer to

848
00:47:12,400 --> 00:47:14,200
Speaker 1: live in a world in which these fortunes were not

849
00:47:14,280 --> 00:47:16,880
Speaker 1: so gigantic to begin with, it didn't have this influence.

850
00:47:17,040 --> 00:47:18,520
Speaker 1: But even in the world we live in, there are

851
00:47:18,560 --> 00:47:21,719
Speaker 1: thoughtful ways to say, you can take the money, but

852
00:47:21,760 --> 00:47:23,440
Speaker 1: you don't get to decide what's on stage. You don't

853
00:47:23,440 --> 00:47:25,200
Speaker 1: get to decide what opera we do.

854
00:47:26,560 --> 00:47:28,640
Speaker 2: So I want to connect the two books on that

855
00:47:28,760 --> 00:47:32,600
Speaker 2: exact point. From worders take all to the Persuaders, And

856
00:47:33,120 --> 00:47:36,600
Speaker 2: it just happens that within the Persuaders, one of the

857
00:47:36,640 --> 00:47:41,600
Speaker 2: discussions you have is on the decline of institutions and

858
00:47:41,640 --> 00:47:45,040
Speaker 2: how they've fallen, which is not a coincidence. There are

859
00:47:45,400 --> 00:47:47,560
Speaker 2: forces out there that have been trying to do this.

860
00:47:48,000 --> 00:47:50,680
Speaker 2: It just happened. In this week's Business Week there was

861
00:47:50,719 --> 00:47:55,600
Speaker 2: a whole analysis of all the drops in institutional approval

862
00:47:55,680 --> 00:47:59,479
Speaker 2: level at just about every level of society. It's really

863
00:47:59,520 --> 00:48:05,960
Speaker 2: quite astonishing, and it raises the question, how can a

864
00:48:06,040 --> 00:48:12,479
Speaker 2: democracy persist if the institutional aspects and it's everything. It's

865
00:48:12,600 --> 00:48:15,680
Speaker 2: the church, and it's the Supreme Court, and it's the military,

866
00:48:16,000 --> 00:48:18,920
Speaker 2: and it's the police, and it's Congress and as well

867
00:48:18,960 --> 00:48:22,239
Speaker 2: as the media. If every one of these entities is

868
00:48:22,360 --> 00:48:27,600
Speaker 2: falling in the belief system of the average individual, what

869
00:48:27,680 --> 00:48:30,399
Speaker 2: are the ramifications of that for democracy?

870
00:48:31,080 --> 00:48:36,719
Speaker 1: I think we are in this very complicated moment and

871
00:48:36,800 --> 00:48:41,560
Speaker 1: situation in which we have to kind of there's a

872
00:48:41,560 --> 00:48:45,920
Speaker 1: circular problem if we have to show people, prove to

873
00:48:46,000 --> 00:48:49,000
Speaker 1: people the democracy can make their lives better, as you

874
00:48:49,040 --> 00:48:52,799
Speaker 1: and I were talking about before, but we need them

875
00:48:52,840 --> 00:48:55,960
Speaker 1: to trust us to even have the authority to make

876
00:48:56,000 --> 00:48:56,959
Speaker 1: people's lives better.

877
00:48:57,160 --> 00:48:57,319
Speaker 2: Right.

878
00:48:57,400 --> 00:49:01,760
Speaker 1: In other words, with the kind of Senate that President

879
00:49:01,760 --> 00:49:04,960
Speaker 1: Biden has, these kind of razor thin margins, a hostile house,

880
00:49:06,280 --> 00:49:08,719
Speaker 1: he can't do a lot of things that would make

881
00:49:08,760 --> 00:49:13,160
Speaker 1: people's lives better. And so then people's lives don't get better,

882
00:49:13,800 --> 00:49:18,239
Speaker 1: and then people don't vote for you to have more authority.

883
00:49:18,360 --> 00:49:20,080
Speaker 1: Give you a bigger House margin, give you a bigger

884
00:49:20,080 --> 00:49:24,279
Speaker 1: Senate margin, and about it and then complain about it,

885
00:49:24,320 --> 00:49:31,960
Speaker 1: and again, like I think people, I think voters are

886
00:49:32,239 --> 00:49:36,640
Speaker 1: often wrong about when they kind of try to diagnose

887
00:49:36,680 --> 00:49:38,720
Speaker 1: what the actual issue is or what the best policy

888
00:49:38,760 --> 00:49:41,279
Speaker 1: solution would be. But I think voters are very intelligent

889
00:49:41,800 --> 00:49:45,799
Speaker 1: about do they feel like the people who are in

890
00:49:45,920 --> 00:49:51,319
Speaker 1: charge care about them and are and are kind of

891
00:49:53,200 --> 00:49:56,879
Speaker 1: making their life better in a material way. And part

892
00:49:56,880 --> 00:50:02,120
Speaker 1: of the puzzle of the Republican Party in recent decades

893
00:50:02,200 --> 00:50:07,320
Speaker 1: has been its ability to win sometimes although not often,

894
00:50:09,160 --> 00:50:13,160
Speaker 1: while not materially delivering for people. And the way it

895
00:50:13,160 --> 00:50:16,400
Speaker 1: has done that is by kind of weaponizing these social

896
00:50:16,440 --> 00:50:17,680
Speaker 1: changes we were talking about.

897
00:50:17,840 --> 00:50:19,520
Speaker 2: So let me stop you there because I want to

898
00:50:19,600 --> 00:50:24,600
Speaker 2: roll this back to the Persuaders and the prologue of

899
00:50:24,640 --> 00:50:27,520
Speaker 2: the book, which is fascinating, right. So you tell the

900
00:50:27,560 --> 00:50:30,640
Speaker 2: story of these two women who turn out to be

901
00:50:31,120 --> 00:50:35,960
Speaker 2: Russian agents. They go on across country trip across America,

902
00:50:36,440 --> 00:50:39,399
Speaker 2: sort of a little bit of find out who we

903
00:50:39,600 --> 00:50:44,000
Speaker 2: Americans are in order to report back to the motherland.

904
00:50:44,360 --> 00:50:46,919
Speaker 2: Tell us about these two women and what did they

905
00:50:47,000 --> 00:50:49,839
Speaker 2: find and how was it weaponized.

906
00:50:50,000 --> 00:50:52,040
Speaker 1: This is a kind of Russian Thumba and Luisa, these

907
00:50:52,080 --> 00:50:55,560
Speaker 1: two intelligence analysts arrived. They travel around the country. We

908
00:50:55,600 --> 00:50:58,080
Speaker 1: don't know exactly, you know, who they met with, but

909
00:50:58,120 --> 00:51:01,560
Speaker 1: they kind of went around, went to probably you know,

910
00:51:01,680 --> 00:51:03,879
Speaker 1: rallies or it kind of took in the political scene,

911
00:51:03,880 --> 00:51:08,200
Speaker 1: maybe met with people all around the country. And we

912
00:51:08,320 --> 00:51:11,839
Speaker 1: do know that what they were doing was gathering not

913
00:51:11,920 --> 00:51:15,360
Speaker 1: intel in the in the like Cloak and Daggers covert,

914
00:51:16,000 --> 00:51:18,600
Speaker 1: just like what's going on in this society out in

915
00:51:18,640 --> 00:51:22,640
Speaker 1: the world, Because what they were actually feeding back home

916
00:51:23,480 --> 00:51:30,600
Speaker 1: was this giant Russian online campaign to you know, toxify

917
00:51:31,120 --> 00:51:32,240
Speaker 1: the American discourse.

918
00:51:32,360 --> 00:51:37,120
Speaker 2: The Internet Research Agency cranks out millions of tweets, millions

919
00:51:37,120 --> 00:51:40,880
Speaker 2: of Facebook posts. The people who run that have not

920
00:51:41,000 --> 00:51:45,560
Speaker 2: done a good job clearing this out, and it has

921
00:51:45,680 --> 00:51:48,880
Speaker 2: a huge impact on our discourse.

922
00:51:48,960 --> 00:51:51,960
Speaker 1: And you know, I very like I whenever I can't

923
00:51:51,960 --> 00:51:54,280
Speaker 1: figure something out, I try to go to the text,

924
00:51:54,320 --> 00:51:56,240
Speaker 1: go to the original sourcemans here, go talk to people

925
00:51:56,440 --> 00:51:58,239
Speaker 1: with this Russian thing. There was so much stuff in

926
00:51:58,239 --> 00:51:59,839
Speaker 1: the they were trying to get Trump elected. They were

927
00:51:59,840 --> 00:52:02,040
Speaker 1: to I was like, let me read this stuff myself, right,

928
00:52:02,080 --> 00:52:05,600
Speaker 1: So I downloaded. I picked two of the most prominent

929
00:52:06,600 --> 00:52:10,160
Speaker 1: accounts in the Russian effort, and I downloaded thousands of

930
00:52:10,200 --> 00:52:13,040
Speaker 1: each of their tweets, and I just read through them

931
00:52:13,040 --> 00:52:15,240
Speaker 1: almost like a book, like read them like a story.

932
00:52:15,600 --> 00:52:18,600
Speaker 1: Started classifying them as this you know, crazy spreadsheet where

933
00:52:18,600 --> 00:52:21,680
Speaker 1: I was analyzing them and what I realized, I mean,

934
00:52:21,800 --> 00:52:23,200
Speaker 1: one of them was trying to get Trump elected. The

935
00:52:23,200 --> 00:52:26,240
Speaker 1: other one was like a pro Black Lives Matter left.

936
00:52:26,640 --> 00:52:30,880
Speaker 2: It's left about It's less about getting something done and

937
00:52:30,920 --> 00:52:32,840
Speaker 2: more about just creating.

938
00:52:32,520 --> 00:52:35,759
Speaker 1: They I realized as I read these tweets, First of all,

939
00:52:36,200 --> 00:52:41,239
Speaker 1: I read them with this kind of weird hate hate admiration.

940
00:52:41,800 --> 00:52:45,040
Speaker 1: Right they I don't know it. It's like when you're

941
00:52:45,040 --> 00:52:48,080
Speaker 1: in a breakup with someone and they they say something

942
00:52:48,160 --> 00:52:51,040
Speaker 1: so mean to you, but it's so insightful, you know,

943
00:52:51,400 --> 00:52:53,000
Speaker 1: and it's like, Wow, you really get me, and I

944
00:52:53,080 --> 00:52:56,280
Speaker 1: never want to be with you ever again. I feel

945
00:52:56,280 --> 00:53:00,520
Speaker 1: like they saw the truth of us, this this mission,

946
00:53:00,520 --> 00:53:06,440
Speaker 1: and their ability to poke at certain trigger points. It

947
00:53:06,480 --> 00:53:11,360
Speaker 1: was just a really astute, well informed effort. So what

948
00:53:11,440 --> 00:53:13,160
Speaker 1: are they getting out of it? If one's trying to

949
00:53:13,160 --> 00:53:16,680
Speaker 1: get Trump elected, the others not. What is the project?

950
00:53:16,680 --> 00:53:19,440
Speaker 1: And I think the project, as I started to interpret it,

951
00:53:19,520 --> 00:53:22,600
Speaker 1: was less about this particular outcome and less even just

952
00:53:22,600 --> 00:53:25,920
Speaker 1: about fomenting division, which is the other thing people said.

953
00:53:26,200 --> 00:53:31,040
Speaker 1: I think it was about promoting a fatalism in Americans

954
00:53:31,360 --> 00:53:33,880
Speaker 1: about other kinds of Americans.

955
00:53:33,680 --> 00:53:37,640
Speaker 2: And that that leads to not only distrusting institutions, but

956
00:53:37,880 --> 00:53:38,719
Speaker 2: us distrusting it.

957
00:53:38,840 --> 00:53:40,960
Speaker 1: Yes, and for anyone who's you know, ever been in

958
00:53:41,000 --> 00:53:44,920
Speaker 1: a relationship or relationship counseling, You know, like, fights are

959
00:53:44,960 --> 00:53:47,680
Speaker 1: not actually dangerous in a relationship. It's actually couples who

960
00:53:47,719 --> 00:53:53,279
Speaker 1: don't fight that you got to worry about. Contempt is

961
00:53:53,320 --> 00:53:56,200
Speaker 1: fatal in a relationship. Can't come back from contempt, very

962
00:53:56,200 --> 00:53:59,040
Speaker 1: hard to come back from contempt, that kind of writing off, Oh,

963
00:53:59,280 --> 00:54:02,600
Speaker 1: you are just always that way, You've always been that way. Ugh,

964
00:54:02,840 --> 00:54:06,320
Speaker 1: I couldn't. Why do I even bother that? When couples

965
00:54:06,320 --> 00:54:08,640
Speaker 1: don't really have much of a shit, that's when it's dead, right,

966
00:54:09,000 --> 00:54:11,520
Speaker 1: And I realized the specific attitude they were trying to

967
00:54:11,520 --> 00:54:15,560
Speaker 1: cultivate in US was not division, which is you and

968
00:54:15,600 --> 00:54:17,600
Speaker 1: I believe in a different tax rate. You and I

969
00:54:17,680 --> 00:54:20,399
Speaker 1: believe in tax rate eighty percent apart from each other.

970
00:54:20,719 --> 00:54:24,600
Speaker 2: It's not it's since the tax system we're but me

971
00:54:24,600 --> 00:54:29,400
Speaker 2: me thinking you're just some money guy, right, and you

972
00:54:29,440 --> 00:54:33,320
Speaker 2: will never listen to reason you don't care about right.

973
00:54:33,400 --> 00:54:36,640
Speaker 1: That is really different than you and I having a

974
00:54:36,760 --> 00:54:40,080
Speaker 1: different number in mind for a top tax rate. And

975
00:54:40,360 --> 00:54:42,879
Speaker 1: what I realized looking at the Russian thing is that

976
00:54:42,920 --> 00:54:46,239
Speaker 1: they're you know, big, but in some ways modest in

977
00:54:46,320 --> 00:54:49,480
Speaker 1: terms of the scope of the American conversation. Their effort

978
00:54:49,560 --> 00:54:52,279
Speaker 1: was to turn us fatalistic about each other, pessimistic about

979
00:54:52,280 --> 00:54:55,839
Speaker 1: the possibility that we can evolve, change, grow, learn, And

980
00:54:55,920 --> 00:54:59,560
Speaker 1: we have been playing so brilliantly into their plan and

981
00:54:59,600 --> 00:55:02,040
Speaker 1: the book The Persuaders as an attempt to say, we

982
00:55:02,080 --> 00:55:03,960
Speaker 1: got to get off this track. We have to stop

983
00:55:04,000 --> 00:55:08,800
Speaker 1: being useful idiots for the Russian intelligence services and actually

984
00:55:08,840 --> 00:55:12,280
Speaker 1: reclaim this notion that people can change. People's minds can change.

985
00:55:12,320 --> 00:55:14,840
Speaker 1: It's the only thing that has ever changed societies. It

986
00:55:14,880 --> 00:55:17,879
Speaker 1: happens all the time. It happens every day. It still

987
00:55:17,920 --> 00:55:20,120
Speaker 1: is happening right now, and we have to kind of,

988
00:55:20,360 --> 00:55:22,920
Speaker 1: you know, pull up our bridges and get back to

989
00:55:22,960 --> 00:55:24,800
Speaker 1: the work of persuasion that we're going to save this country.

990
00:55:24,880 --> 00:55:28,360
Speaker 2: Huh. Really amazing. You had a really interesting column recently

991
00:55:29,040 --> 00:55:33,359
Speaker 2: about the upcoming twenty twenty four election. The real battleground

992
00:55:33,760 --> 00:55:37,320
Speaker 2: of twenty twenty four is emotion. Fascinating stuff.

993
00:55:37,440 --> 00:55:42,960
Speaker 1: Explain why, Look, emotion is the new Michigan, Pennsylvania or Wisconsin.

994
00:55:43,160 --> 00:55:44,040
Speaker 2: It's the swing state.

995
00:55:44,080 --> 00:55:46,160
Speaker 1: It's the swing state. And what I mean by that is,

996
00:55:47,239 --> 00:55:49,880
Speaker 1: I think when we talk about politics, we're often talking

997
00:55:49,920 --> 00:55:53,719
Speaker 1: about the wrong thing. We talk about policies, right, or

998
00:55:53,719 --> 00:55:55,799
Speaker 1: we talk about crises like the border, or we talk

999
00:55:55,800 --> 00:55:59,680
Speaker 1: about issues like critical race theory, the agendap issue like that,

1000
00:56:00,080 --> 00:56:04,759
Speaker 1: or issues like climate change and what do we do

1001
00:56:04,800 --> 00:56:11,160
Speaker 1: about that? But what is actually motivating voters? Not motivating voters,

1002
00:56:11,280 --> 00:56:15,040
Speaker 1: riling people up, not riling people up leading to certain

1003
00:56:15,120 --> 00:56:18,160
Speaker 1: kinds of candidates versus others. Being attractive to people is

1004
00:56:18,200 --> 00:56:21,880
Speaker 1: often deeper stuff, right, And I think those of us

1005
00:56:21,880 --> 00:56:23,880
Speaker 1: who talk and think about politics for a living are

1006
00:56:23,920 --> 00:56:26,240
Speaker 1: often quite blind to that because we are quite interested

1007
00:56:26,400 --> 00:56:28,920
Speaker 1: in policy. We think Medicare for All has an interesting

1008
00:56:28,960 --> 00:56:32,440
Speaker 1: idea to talk about. But I think what I've learned

1009
00:56:32,920 --> 00:56:35,560
Speaker 1: spending most of my life writing about regular people dealing

1010
00:56:35,560 --> 00:56:39,120
Speaker 1: with the big forces of the world, is that for

1011
00:56:39,200 --> 00:56:43,160
Speaker 1: most people, the things that really animate them, the questions

1012
00:56:43,160 --> 00:56:45,080
Speaker 1: that we animate them are much more in the kind

1013
00:56:45,080 --> 00:56:48,320
Speaker 1: of emotional terrain. So taking a shoe like CRT, critical

1014
00:56:48,400 --> 00:56:51,600
Speaker 1: race theory, honest history in schools, all this stuff, right,

1015
00:56:52,400 --> 00:56:54,320
Speaker 1: I don't think any of that is about the stuff

1016
00:56:54,320 --> 00:56:56,960
Speaker 1: that it's formally about. I think that is about the

1017
00:56:57,200 --> 00:57:03,400
Speaker 1: universal dread that every parent has that your kid will

1018
00:57:04,080 --> 00:57:06,359
Speaker 1: drift away from you, which, by the way, they will.

1019
00:57:06,480 --> 00:57:09,879
Speaker 1: That's the meaning of life of parents. Your kid will

1020
00:57:09,960 --> 00:57:12,480
Speaker 1: drift away from you once they come out, no going

1021
00:57:12,520 --> 00:57:16,040
Speaker 1: back in. Right, it's awful for us parents. You hug

1022
00:57:16,040 --> 00:57:19,920
Speaker 1: your kids close. One day, they stop wanting as many hugs. Right,

1023
00:57:19,960 --> 00:57:22,080
Speaker 1: one day they don't come into bed and cuddled anymore.

1024
00:57:22,160 --> 00:57:24,240
Speaker 1: Too old for that one day they you know, mom

1025
00:57:24,240 --> 00:57:27,160
Speaker 1: and faught right. The whole process of parenting is like

1026
00:57:27,240 --> 00:57:32,480
Speaker 1: losing your kids slowly into their own life. And what

1027
00:57:32,600 --> 00:57:35,400
Speaker 1: is this CRT stuff? But weaponizing that fear. Your kids

1028
00:57:35,400 --> 00:57:38,640
Speaker 1: are going to learn stuff that will make them think

1029
00:57:38,640 --> 00:57:41,160
Speaker 1: differently from you. Your kids are going to know a

1030
00:57:41,160 --> 00:57:43,600
Speaker 1: different story about the country than the one you know.

1031
00:57:43,640 --> 00:57:46,920
Speaker 1: Your kids will be turned a gender according to this

1032
00:57:47,000 --> 00:57:49,440
Speaker 1: fantasy that is not the gender you knew them to me.

1033
00:57:49,600 --> 00:57:55,920
Speaker 1: It is all weaponizing this completely human thing of my

1034
00:57:56,000 --> 00:57:58,040
Speaker 1: kids are going to grow up and leave me. Right,

1035
00:57:58,160 --> 00:58:00,640
Speaker 1: my kids are going to become out of my control.

1036
00:58:01,480 --> 00:58:03,640
Speaker 1: And I think when we I'm just taking that one issue,

1037
00:58:03,680 --> 00:58:05,760
Speaker 1: when we actually start that, you could do that analogy

1038
00:58:06,920 --> 00:58:07,600
Speaker 1: any issue.

1039
00:58:07,760 --> 00:58:07,880
Speaker 2: Right.

1040
00:58:08,080 --> 00:58:10,480
Speaker 1: You think there's border things about you think anyone in

1041
00:58:10,520 --> 00:58:15,400
Speaker 1: the country understands the actual nuance immigration positive order. People

1042
00:58:15,440 --> 00:58:19,760
Speaker 1: feel invaded psychologically by the era we live in, people

1043
00:58:19,840 --> 00:58:23,200
Speaker 1: feel like, ah, there's not enough for me. I don't

1044
00:58:23,200 --> 00:58:25,440
Speaker 1: know if I can get ahead, Like the whole world's

1045
00:58:25,480 --> 00:58:28,880
Speaker 1: coming in. Right, that's just like a deep emotional experience

1046
00:58:29,160 --> 00:58:32,320
Speaker 1: that then shows up and oh yeah, the border that

1047
00:58:32,400 --> 00:58:35,600
Speaker 1: sounds like what may be responsible for the way I'm feeling.

1048
00:58:35,840 --> 00:58:39,400
Speaker 2: Right, So I find that fascinating that that you managed

1049
00:58:39,480 --> 00:58:44,600
Speaker 2: to take a broad spectrum of high resonance policy issues

1050
00:58:44,760 --> 00:58:47,800
Speaker 2: and just boiled it down to, Hey, they're pushing an

1051
00:58:47,840 --> 00:58:50,720
Speaker 2: emotional hot button, and if you don't figure out how

1052
00:58:50,760 --> 00:58:53,400
Speaker 2: to play that same game, if you're on the other side,

1053
00:58:53,720 --> 00:58:54,479
Speaker 2: you're gonna lose.

1054
00:58:54,760 --> 00:59:00,400
Speaker 1: Think about the kids who are so incredibly Areiculate and

1055
00:59:00,480 --> 00:59:04,240
Speaker 1: vision Are and Climate gen Z climate people. First of all,

1056
00:59:04,280 --> 00:59:06,640
Speaker 1: they're absolutely right on the policy, and they're the only

1057
00:59:06,640 --> 00:59:09,240
Speaker 1: people who might save us. But I think when I

1058
00:59:09,320 --> 00:59:13,640
Speaker 1: even talk to them, there's it even a deeper thing there,

1059
00:59:14,200 --> 00:59:19,200
Speaker 1: like their parents. If you're twenty five, your parents are

1060
00:59:19,200 --> 00:59:21,040
Speaker 1: telling you how much they love you every day. If

1061
00:59:21,080 --> 00:59:25,000
Speaker 1: you're lucky, your parents are leaving you a dying world

1062
00:59:25,440 --> 00:59:29,360
Speaker 1: while telling you they love you. That's really confusing, right,

1063
00:59:30,000 --> 00:59:34,520
Speaker 1: So if you are a pro democracy leader who's trying

1064
00:59:34,560 --> 00:59:38,320
Speaker 1: to build coalitions around climate, around honest history, or whatever else.

1065
00:59:38,680 --> 00:59:43,120
Speaker 1: I just think the essay was a plea to understand

1066
00:59:44,120 --> 00:59:46,440
Speaker 1: those depths. It doesn't mean the policy issues are not important.

1067
00:59:46,720 --> 00:59:49,120
Speaker 1: It means that if you are not speaking to people

1068
00:59:49,440 --> 00:59:51,400
Speaker 1: at the level which they're actually living these things and

1069
00:59:51,480 --> 00:59:54,800
Speaker 1: understanding those dynamics, you're leaving them open to authoritarians who

1070
00:59:54,840 --> 00:59:56,640
Speaker 1: are always good at speaking to emotions.

1071
00:59:56,640 --> 00:59:59,960
Speaker 2: And that's what I found so persuasive about that essay.

1072
01:00:00,160 --> 01:00:03,600
Speaker 2: I strongly suggest everybody go read The real bad ground

1073
01:00:03,640 --> 01:00:06,320
Speaker 2: of twenty twenty four is emotion. I only have you

1074
01:00:06,360 --> 01:00:08,880
Speaker 2: for another four or five minutes. Let's jump to our

1075
01:00:08,920 --> 01:00:12,120
Speaker 2: speed round, our favorite questions. We ask all of our guests,

1076
01:00:12,760 --> 01:00:18,000
Speaker 2: starting with what have you been listening to or watching?

1077
01:00:18,040 --> 01:00:22,600
Speaker 2: What's been keeping you intellectually challenged these days?

1078
01:00:23,080 --> 01:00:25,760
Speaker 1: Watching? You know, like you have joint bank accounts and

1079
01:00:25,800 --> 01:00:28,360
Speaker 1: individual bank accounts. I have shows for myself and shows

1080
01:00:28,360 --> 01:00:30,440
Speaker 1: for everyone in my family. So my son and I

1081
01:00:30,480 --> 01:00:34,200
Speaker 1: are watching Seinfeld. He's almost nine. We're starting from episode one,

1082
01:00:34,240 --> 01:00:35,880
Speaker 1: season one and trying to go all the way through.

1083
01:00:37,320 --> 01:00:38,960
Speaker 2: Is nine the right age?

1084
01:00:39,240 --> 01:00:42,680
Speaker 1: I think he's just getting like a literally okay, maybe

1085
01:00:42,720 --> 01:00:45,280
Speaker 1: a year short, but I was right. Yeah, my daughter

1086
01:00:45,280 --> 01:00:47,680
Speaker 1: and I are watching Is It Cake? When I watch

1087
01:00:47,760 --> 01:00:50,000
Speaker 1: with Something with the two of them together, great British

1088
01:00:50,000 --> 01:00:53,280
Speaker 1: bacon show. I watch Atlanta by myself, that's my solo show.

1089
01:00:53,880 --> 01:00:57,400
Speaker 1: And I'm watching Veep right now with my wife.

1090
01:00:57,840 --> 01:01:00,760
Speaker 2: The first season is very tough to get through. Yeah,

1091
01:01:00,800 --> 01:01:04,360
Speaker 2: it's very cringey the first couple episodes, as is politics.

1092
01:01:05,320 --> 01:01:06,040
Speaker 1: Okay, go ahead.

1093
01:01:06,560 --> 01:01:08,400
Speaker 2: Mentors who helped shape your career.

1094
01:01:08,520 --> 01:01:10,200
Speaker 1: I talked about her a little bit, Jill Abrams, and

1095
01:01:10,280 --> 01:01:12,720
Speaker 1: she got me in a journalism, gave me a chance,

1096
01:01:12,760 --> 01:01:14,160
Speaker 1: advocated for me, and I don't think I'd be a

1097
01:01:14,240 --> 01:01:15,280
Speaker 1: journalist if it wasn't for her.

1098
01:01:15,640 --> 01:01:17,800
Speaker 2: Let's talk about books. What are some of your favorites.

1099
01:01:17,840 --> 01:01:19,000
Speaker 2: What are you reading currently?

1100
01:01:19,280 --> 01:01:21,000
Speaker 1: I'm reading this book everybody was talking about a couple

1101
01:01:21,000 --> 01:01:22,720
Speaker 1: of years ago, called A Little Life and Novel. It's

1102
01:01:22,800 --> 01:01:27,920
Speaker 1: most wrenching, searing, awfully painful, but brilliant novel by Hannah

1103
01:01:28,000 --> 01:01:32,160
Speaker 1: Hanya Jana Gehara, So so good. And then you know,

1104
01:01:32,200 --> 01:01:33,880
Speaker 1: in terms of the books that have been most important

1105
01:01:33,920 --> 01:01:36,280
Speaker 1: to me historical, I would say my genre of narrative nonfiction.

1106
01:01:36,640 --> 01:01:39,000
Speaker 1: So of the most important books, Behind the Beautiful Forevers

1107
01:01:39,040 --> 01:01:43,760
Speaker 1: by Catherine Boo Random Family. You know, I'm really interested

1108
01:01:43,760 --> 01:01:47,640
Speaker 1: in these books that kind of do this deep immersive

1109
01:01:47,680 --> 01:01:52,640
Speaker 1: work following, following people through their lives. That's the kind

1110
01:01:52,680 --> 01:01:54,560
Speaker 1: of work that I've dedicated myself to doing.

1111
01:01:54,800 --> 01:01:57,760
Speaker 2: And our final two questions, what sort of advice would

1112
01:01:57,760 --> 01:02:04,200
Speaker 2: you give a recent college grad in a career in journalism.

1113
01:02:04,640 --> 01:02:11,280
Speaker 1: It's tough. The business model in many ways is gone.

1114
01:02:11,640 --> 01:02:16,600
Speaker 1: But I go to parties every month and meet people,

1115
01:02:16,640 --> 01:02:19,720
Speaker 1: do all kinds of things, and ninety five percent of

1116
01:02:19,720 --> 01:02:23,240
Speaker 1: people I meet don't believe in what they do. Huh,

1117
01:02:23,440 --> 01:02:26,720
Speaker 1: don't think it's socially important. It wasn't the thing that

1118
01:02:26,720 --> 01:02:28,840
Speaker 1: they promised themselves they'd be doing when they were twenty.

1119
01:02:29,360 --> 01:02:32,000
Speaker 1: And if you become a journalist and stick with it

1120
01:02:32,080 --> 01:02:33,760
Speaker 1: and find a way throw all the ups and downs,

1121
01:02:33,800 --> 01:02:34,600
Speaker 1: you will not be one.

1122
01:02:34,520 --> 01:02:36,720
Speaker 2: Of those people like really interesting.

1123
01:02:37,240 --> 01:02:39,320
Speaker 1: You will love what you do and believe in what

1124
01:02:39,360 --> 01:02:41,240
Speaker 1: you do and know that you're doing something that is

1125
01:02:41,280 --> 01:02:42,040
Speaker 1: good for the world.

1126
01:02:42,480 --> 01:02:45,240
Speaker 2: And our final question, what do you know about the

1127
01:02:45,280 --> 01:02:48,720
Speaker 2: world today? You wish you knew twenty plus years ago

1128
01:02:48,800 --> 01:02:50,080
Speaker 2: when you were first getting started.

1129
01:02:54,600 --> 01:02:59,840
Speaker 1: I wish that I knew how fragile the American system

1130
01:02:59,920 --> 01:03:05,400
Speaker 1: is I grew up on a myth of how utterly

1131
01:03:05,520 --> 01:03:11,520
Speaker 1: durable it is, and it turned out not to be.

1132
01:03:13,400 --> 01:03:15,240
Speaker 1: And I wish I had seen that earlier and been

1133
01:03:15,280 --> 01:03:19,600
Speaker 1: able to see those cracks earlier. There were always people

1134
01:03:19,600 --> 01:03:21,840
Speaker 1: all along telling us about those things. Sometimes we don't

1135
01:03:21,840 --> 01:03:25,320
Speaker 1: listen to those people early enough. And I've tried to

1136
01:03:25,360 --> 01:03:29,240
Speaker 1: become a better listener to the people telling us things

1137
01:03:29,240 --> 01:03:30,160
Speaker 1: before everybody else.

1138
01:03:30,480 --> 01:03:37,640
Speaker 2: That's a really insightful response. And hindsight's always twenty twenty.

1139
01:03:37,680 --> 01:03:40,120
Speaker 2: But knowing what you know now, and you go back

1140
01:03:40,760 --> 01:03:45,480
Speaker 2: and look throughout American history, like the red flags were

1141
01:03:45,520 --> 01:03:49,960
Speaker 2: there starting with the communist witch hunts in the fifties,

1142
01:03:50,280 --> 01:03:54,320
Speaker 2: how we treated the Japanese during World War Two, how

1143
01:03:54,360 --> 01:03:58,120
Speaker 2: long it took to give women the vote, Like you

1144
01:03:58,160 --> 01:04:01,120
Speaker 2: could just keep going back, Jim oh, and just work

1145
01:04:01,160 --> 01:04:04,440
Speaker 2: your way back decade by decade. There were lots and

1146
01:04:04,520 --> 01:04:06,120
Speaker 2: lots of warnings out there.

1147
01:04:06,000 --> 01:04:08,040
Speaker 1: And lots of people waving those red flags who we

1148
01:04:08,080 --> 01:04:08,720
Speaker 1: didn't listen to.

1149
01:04:08,920 --> 01:04:12,320
Speaker 2: And no, no, no, the system is fine, which kind

1150
01:04:12,320 --> 01:04:15,720
Speaker 2: of raises a question, is the system really sturdier than

1151
01:04:15,760 --> 01:04:19,680
Speaker 2: we realized it survived all this, or does the cumulative

1152
01:04:19,760 --> 01:04:23,920
Speaker 2: damage of all these little cracks eventually lead to some breakage.

1153
01:04:24,000 --> 01:04:26,920
Speaker 1: I think the system has been sturdy in that it's held,

1154
01:04:27,040 --> 01:04:31,600
Speaker 1: but under the system, awful things have been able to

1155
01:04:31,600 --> 01:04:34,560
Speaker 1: happen in this country. You know, Slavery was a legal,

1156
01:04:35,360 --> 01:04:40,120
Speaker 1: constitutional part of this system until it wasn't. Internment was

1157
01:04:40,160 --> 01:04:42,160
Speaker 1: a legal part of this country and part of the

1158
01:04:42,160 --> 01:04:45,120
Speaker 1: system until it wasn't. Segregation was a part of this

1159
01:04:45,200 --> 01:04:48,880
Speaker 1: country until it wasn't. You know, criminalization of homosexuality was

1160
01:04:49,840 --> 01:04:52,120
Speaker 1: part of the system. So the system has held, but

1161
01:04:52,200 --> 01:04:56,280
Speaker 1: the system can tolerate a great deal of barbarism. And

1162
01:04:56,360 --> 01:05:00,840
Speaker 1: I think we've what we're learning now is that we

1163
01:05:01,480 --> 01:05:03,040
Speaker 1: just have to we have to make sure that our

1164
01:05:03,080 --> 01:05:07,440
Speaker 1: definition of the system holding is not you know, having

1165
01:05:07,480 --> 01:05:13,920
Speaker 1: some kind of formal familiarity of the New Hampshire Primary

1166
01:05:14,120 --> 01:05:16,280
Speaker 1: and this and that and all these kind of rights

1167
01:05:16,320 --> 01:05:19,240
Speaker 1: and rituals that we recognize, while in fact what's going

1168
01:05:19,280 --> 01:05:24,200
Speaker 1: on under the hood is barbarism. And I think that's

1169
01:05:24,680 --> 01:05:28,920
Speaker 1: that's going to be a decisive choice the country faces

1170
01:05:29,000 --> 01:05:29,600
Speaker 1: later this year.

1171
01:05:29,720 --> 01:05:32,480
Speaker 2: Really really fascinating on Thank you for being so generous

1172
01:05:32,520 --> 01:05:35,880
Speaker 2: with your time. We have been speaking with on Georgadis.

1173
01:05:36,400 --> 01:05:39,920
Speaker 2: He is the author of Winners Take All, and more recently,

1174
01:05:40,480 --> 01:05:44,720
Speaker 2: The Persuaders. If you enjoy this conversation, be sure and

1175
01:05:44,800 --> 01:05:47,720
Speaker 2: check out any of the previous five hundred we've done

1176
01:05:47,760 --> 01:05:51,840
Speaker 2: over the past ten years. You can find those at iTunes, Spotify, YouTube,

1177
01:05:51,960 --> 01:05:55,200
Speaker 2: wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Sign up for my

1178
01:05:55,320 --> 01:05:57,800
Speaker 2: daily reading list at ridults dot com. Follow me on

1179
01:05:57,840 --> 01:06:01,320
Speaker 2: Twitter at rid Halt's, follow all of the Bloomberg Fine

1180
01:06:01,320 --> 01:06:06,000
Speaker 2: family of podcasts on Twitter at podcast and check out

1181
01:06:06,160 --> 01:06:11,240
Speaker 2: our latest entry to the world of podcasts at The Money.

1182
01:06:11,400 --> 01:06:14,320
Speaker 2: Each week we do a short ten minute discussion of

1183
01:06:14,360 --> 01:06:18,320
Speaker 2: an important topic to investors. I would be remiss if

1184
01:06:18,320 --> 01:06:20,720
Speaker 2: I did not thank our crack staff that helps put

1185
01:06:20,760 --> 01:06:24,920
Speaker 2: these conversations together each week. Meredith Frank is my audio engineer.

1186
01:06:25,160 --> 01:06:29,440
Speaker 2: Anna Luke is my producer. Sean Russo is my researcher.

1187
01:06:30,120 --> 01:06:33,560
Speaker 2: I'm Barry Dhelts. You've been listening to Masters in Business

1188
01:06:34,120 --> 01:06:36,000
Speaker 2: on Bloomberg Radio.