Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: All Right, I'm just going to say it, Settle into
Speaker 2: a chair if you're in a car. I say this
Speaker 2: often when we've got somebody spectacular, and we do have
Speaker 2: somebody spectacular on because this is going to be a
Speaker 2: conversation we have been talking about in the newsroom with
Speaker 2: our team. Everybody's been reading this book, highlighting different things,
Speaker 2: and so we're delighted to have a very special guest.
Speaker 2: I want to start there with a quote from his
Speaker 2: new book just out this week, and the opening of it,
Speaker 2: the author I will do the reveal in a moment. Community,
Speaker 2: self government, economic security, and other concerns relevant to the
Speaker 2: working class are thus central to the kind of liberal
Speaker 2: democracy he is advocating. These notions capture the essence of
Speaker 2: what the famous English poet and Republican thinker John Milton
Speaker 2: had in mind when he wrote, they who are greatest
Speaker 2: are not elevated above their brethren, live soberly in their families,
Speaker 2: walk the streets as other men may be spoken to, freely, familiarly,
Speaker 2: from learly sorry, friendly with that adoration. This is in
Speaker 2: the introduction page twenty eight of a new book out
Speaker 2: is entitled what Happened to Liberal Democracy? We're making a
Speaker 2: politics of shared prosperity. It's written by darn Asemoglu, his
Speaker 2: economic science Nobel laureate and he is also Institute Professor
Speaker 2: in the Department of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Speaker 2: I could go on about his accolades. I have to
Speaker 2: say I said this earlier. You're the first person that
Speaker 2: my daughter, who's now twenty three, studied economics. I've been
Speaker 2: doing this for years. When I mentioned that I was
Speaker 2: reading your book and talking, she was starstruck. And she said,
Speaker 2: from freshman year, she has been reading your research, citing it,
Speaker 2: citations and all of the work she's doing. And she said,
Speaker 2: can you please forget his autograph? So we are delighted
Speaker 2: to have you with us.
Speaker 3: You've never said anything, truly, you've never said I've never
Speaker 3: heard you say anything like that in the six years
Speaker 3: we've been doing this together.
Speaker 1: This is this is big action out come every week.
Speaker 2: I guess we kind of rushing and stumbing through, but
Speaker 2: I just we are delighted. You've sparked a conversation for us,
Speaker 2: which is I think part of it. But let's get
Speaker 2: to why did you write this book, you write a lot,
Speaker 2: you do a lot of research. Why this book.
Speaker 4: Because I think liberal democracy is one of the greatest
Speaker 4: achievements we've had from our ape beginnings and lives in
Speaker 4: very unequal circumstances and very uncertain existence mired by violence.
Speaker 4: Today we live in very complex societies, open to ideas,
Speaker 4: with lots of individual freedom. People participate in politics peacefully,
Speaker 4: reach compromise, sometimes consensus, and moreover we get lots of
Speaker 4: things from the government, including our ability to express our voice.
Speaker 4: That is an amazing achievement, and we are, I think,
Speaker 4: at the cusp of losing it. Liberal democracy, which still
Speaker 4: in my mind is the best framework definitely something we
Speaker 4: very much need for the future, is in crisis after
Speaker 4: decades and decades of actually serving us quite well. So
Speaker 4: we have to understand that crisis and we have to
Speaker 4: rebuild liberal democracy unless we risk we want to risk
Speaker 4: losing it.
Speaker 3: We're going to talk about how you think we can
Speaker 3: rebuild it, but I want to just get some parameters
Speaker 3: set here and do some definitions, because early on in
Speaker 3: your book you talk about the definition of liberalism and
Speaker 3: how it means different things to different people depending on
Speaker 3: where you live. The European view versus the American view.
Speaker 3: Just straighten that out for us right now before we
Speaker 3: dive into this conversation.
Speaker 4: Yeah, thanks, Tim, And that's very important. Liberalism has had
Speaker 4: many meanings over the ages, and today it's a big tent,
Speaker 4: but at the core of it is a commitment to
Speaker 4: protect individual liberties, also protect the weaker members of society,
Speaker 4: and also a commitment to progress from which we all benefit.
Speaker 4: Those are the defining features of liberal ideas and they
Speaker 4: have acted as a rallying cry for people to build
Speaker 4: a better society. And the way that I define it
Speaker 4: liberal democracy is the institutionalization of these ideas. It's carrying
Speaker 4: them to the actual practice of our lives, and it's
Speaker 4: been brilliantly successful in the grand scheme of things.
Speaker 1: We've had.
Speaker 4: Decades of very rapid growth under liberal democracy for the
Speaker 4: about four decades following World War Two. Those were not
Speaker 4: just high growth periods, but they were periods in which
Speaker 4: inequality was remaining stable or sometimes even declining. Every demographic group, men, women,
Speaker 4: by race, different education groups. They saw their earnings grow
Speaker 4: very rapidly. And you know, always political disagreements were very important,
Speaker 4: but generally peacefully. Today if you look at the pictures
Speaker 4: very different. Shared prosperity doesn't work anymore. Inequality has increased
Speaker 4: a lot, but worse. In the United States, We've seen
Speaker 4: about half of the population without a college degree experienced
Speaker 4: stagnant or declining wages for about four decades, while productivity increase,
Speaker 4: while people with college degrees postgraduate degrees improve their living
Speaker 4: standards significantly. And when you ask Americans, they have such
Speaker 4: negative views of democratic institutions, their trust in Congress, in
Speaker 4: the Supreme Court, and the presidencies. At an all time
Speaker 4: law the countries polarized, and very concerningly, all Americans, but
Speaker 4: especially the young, are much less willing to say that
Speaker 4: democracy is the best form of government, and they're willing
Speaker 4: to experiment with different ideas.
Speaker 2: They're really destined to come here. I think people point
Speaker 2: fingers out a particular president or political figure, but we
Speaker 2: were we destined to be here.
Speaker 4: I wouldn't say we're destined to be here. But I
Speaker 4: would also not blame it on a particular president or
Speaker 4: particular set of choices that are US specific, because you
Speaker 4: see very similar trends across many advanced nations and even
Speaker 4: in the emerging world. So there are some commonalities there,
Speaker 4: so that's very important to get the diagnosis right so
Speaker 4: that we know how to deal with it.
Speaker 3: You actually make the point early on, I mean, this
Speaker 3: is the way your book begins, and Carolyn and I
Speaker 3: were both struck by this because we hear a lot
Speaker 3: about Victor orbon Now and the figure that he is
Speaker 3: in Hungary. But you make the point that, look, this
Speaker 3: is somebody who in the late eighties early nineties was
Speaker 3: a very different leader and represented something very different, not
Speaker 3: just for that country but for Europe.
Speaker 4: Absolutely absolutely, and I think it is sort of telling
Speaker 4: of the arc of liberalism that he was the poster
Speaker 4: child for you know, liberty, for building democratic institutions, and
Speaker 4: then he turned his back on all of these ideas.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: The exact circumstances in Hungary, of course, are different. Post
Speaker 4: transition societies had a lot of trouble. Many of them
Speaker 4: navigated them better than Hungary. But I think the issues
Speaker 4: that we see in the United States have commonalities with Hungary,
Speaker 4: but they have a lot of communalities with what's going
Speaker 4: on in the UK and France, in Germany, in the
Speaker 4: rest of Europe.
Speaker 3: Is there anywhere where this is not happening, right? Now
Speaker 3: that you would hold up in twenty twenty six as
Speaker 3: an ideal liberal democracy.
Speaker 4: Ideal, Absolutely not. And I don't think if you ask
Speaker 4: me what is an ideal that liberal democracy going back, No,
Speaker 4: there isn't. That's liberalism is always an aspiring ideology and
Speaker 4: liberal democracy is always a work in progress. But today
Speaker 4: you see different degrees of crisis, and one place where
Speaker 4: I would say the crisis is also showing up in
Speaker 4: some ways but in a less severe form is Switzerland.
Speaker 4: And one of the things about Switzerland is that it's
Speaker 4: much more participatory. And you also see even today in
Speaker 4: this polarized world that we live in where people shout
Speaker 4: at each other, social media has really created a very
Speaker 4: toxic ecosystem of exchange. You have recently experienced an amazing
Speaker 4: achievement in Ireland in the context of this decision on
Speaker 4: the referendum, which was based on citizens assemblies, building consensus,
Speaker 4: changing people's minds, debating it for a long time, and
Speaker 4: then putting it to vote for the people, where people
Speaker 4: actually said this is what we want in two different referendums.
Speaker 4: So there are ways in which we can make this
Speaker 4: work even today, but there is a challenge.
Speaker 2: There are challenges, and Tim and I both listen to
Speaker 2: some different podcasters. When you did with I think J.
Speaker 2: Sanger of Harvard that was really I said, what was
Speaker 2: wonderful is it was a dialogue, which is so refreshing.
Speaker 2: We talk about just even in our world that people
Speaker 2: don't debate anymore. It's one view comes on And when
Speaker 2: I started doing journalism, you couldn't present one voice without
Speaker 2: having the other voice, especially on a topic. And it's
Speaker 2: interesting to see how things have changed the sense of
Speaker 2: community though, how important that is. And you know, I
Speaker 2: think it might have been with mister Sanger, this concept
Speaker 2: of people or maybe living different worlds, completely separate worlds.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and that's a problem.
Speaker 4: It's a big problem. But let's go back to community,
Speaker 4: because thank you for bringing it out with Carol. Community
Speaker 4: was quite important for liberal aspirations going back several hundred years,
Speaker 4: and when you look at early liberal democracy, communities played
Speaker 4: a very important role. One of the very bad rock
Speaker 4: ideas of liberal democracies that there should be self government people.
Speaker 4: It's not just that you should be free to have thoughts,
Speaker 4: that you should also be free to put them into practice.
Speaker 4: That means that to have some control over your life,
Speaker 4: and it's not enough or it's not even meaningful to say, oh,
Speaker 4: you can achieve that by going to the polls once
Speaker 4: every four years or five years and have a vote.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 4: That starts with local associations. But the Talkville saw in
Speaker 4: the United States more than two hundred years one and
Speaker 4: fifty years ago, and he thought that was just so remarkable.
Speaker 4: It starts with local governments where people participate. It starts
Speaker 4: with other organizations like labor unions that were a very
Speaker 4: important way for many working people to participate in self government.
Speaker 4: And all of these, you see, they start at the
Speaker 4: community level. But there's one thing something else, and then
Speaker 4: you actually put your finger on that, Carol, which is
Speaker 4: that when we have a debate, I think the the
Speaker 4: best way of ensuring that we're not just talking past
Speaker 4: each other or we're not shouting at each other, is
Speaker 4: that we have some shared values, shared moral understanding, shared principles.
Speaker 4: And that again comes from communities and then emanates from
Speaker 4: communities to the national level. So all of these are
Speaker 4: very important. But liberal democracy over the last several decades
Speaker 4: has also turned its back on communities. Communities have become
Speaker 4: more segregated. There has been a deeper division in the
Speaker 4: United States between say not just Republican and Democrat, but
Speaker 4: between more educated and less educated segments. Their values have diverged,
Speaker 4: their networks have diverged, and everything that was a bit
Speaker 4: of a like a melting pot is no longer. One
Speaker 4: very important one that we actually often overlook is where
Speaker 4: people work the sort of of course I'm exaggerating, but
Speaker 4: the typical firm of the industrial age was like a
Speaker 4: manufacturing plant, where you had managers, you had consultants, you
Speaker 4: had engineers, you had white color workers, blue color worker,
Speaker 4: custodial workers. So it was a real melting pot. Today,
Speaker 4: the image that you might have in your mind is
Speaker 4: Google on the one hand and McDonald's on the other,
Speaker 4: and complete divide in terms of not just income, education
Speaker 4: and background on who works there. And so we're not
Speaker 4: getting that melting that will bring those shared principles together
Speaker 4: on which we can then build something better. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Agree, Like I just think about growing up and like
Speaker 2: the local shopkeepers and just we all were kind of
Speaker 2: running in each other or a religious organization and meant
Speaker 2: all different types of people. I know, we've got a
Speaker 2: question coming up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is actually a perfect question for a segue
Speaker 3: that we wanted to get to and has to do
Speaker 3: with technology and in your view of technology. We open
Speaker 3: this conversation up to our viewers and listeners and we
Speaker 3: got a great question from Colin joining us from Atlanta.
Speaker 3: Colin writes in could digital connectivity allow a more direct democracy?
Speaker 3: With moving slightly away from representative democracy and to direct
Speaker 3: democracy help alleviate concerns from those who are losing faith?
Speaker 3: So two different questions there. I wanted to start with
Speaker 3: the technology one because you have some really interesting views
Speaker 3: about technology's role in actually moving us away from liberal democracy.
Speaker 3: What do you think?
Speaker 4: Well, I mean, let me just say that technology plays
Speaker 4: a central role in the book in several parts, but
Speaker 4: centrally in understanding how we transition from an industrial economy
Speaker 4: to a post industrial economy. So the Google McDonald's is
Speaker 4: just a symptom of something much broader about how the
Speaker 4: economy is organized, and that was a technological transition. Partly
Speaker 4: globalization played a role as well. But second, algorithms are
Speaker 4: so much more important today they in some domains actually
Speaker 4: rule our lives. So we have to come to grips
Speaker 4: with the information ecosystem, communication ecosystem created by algorithms now
Speaker 4: in both how digital technologies influence shared prosperity and how
Speaker 4: algorithm influence our communication. I don't think there is anything predetermined.
Speaker 4: Technology doesn't come with a pre programmed thing that says
Speaker 4: I'm going to create inequality, I'm going to destroy communication.
Speaker 1: It's how we.
Speaker 4: Use technology, how we define technology, how we develop it.
Speaker 4: And on social media, I think it's very telling to
Speaker 4: go back to how people were viewing it in the
Speaker 4: late nineteen nineties early two thousands. Everybody thought, i mean
Speaker 4: almost everybody thought that this was going to democratize communication.
Speaker 4: The Arab spraying was Facebook and Twitter in some places.
Speaker 4: The new wikis were going to make information available and
Speaker 4: you know those hopes, Okay, they turned out to be that, right,
Speaker 4: we can agree on that, but they weren't completely naive.
Speaker 4: The reason why they weren't naive is because technology had
Speaker 4: that capability. We could have built new communities for reliable information,
Speaker 4: to create new compromises, to find new bridging ways in
Speaker 4: which we can bring ourselves together. But it turned out
Speaker 4: that the key decisions that many companies made were not
Speaker 4: about that. My Space, for example, one of the first
Speaker 4: social media side is a bit closer to that because
Speaker 4: it brought communities together.
Speaker 3: Shout out to tom MySpace.
Speaker 4: Okay, fantastic, yes, But algorithmic feeds that essentially amplified the
Speaker 4: most incendiary material, the one that gets views because it's extreme,
Speaker 4: that angers the other side and motivates your side to
Speaker 4: become even more vocal. Those are the kinds of things
Speaker 4: that rise up in the algorithmic feed And on another part,
Speaker 4: they are the things that create envy and undergird mental
Speaker 4: health problems.
Speaker 1: But all of them.
Speaker 4: You know what they also do. They take their attention
Speaker 4: towards social media communication, and as a result, Americans interact
Speaker 4: much less physical leave with other people. They have fewer friends,
Speaker 4: fewer close friends. They spend much less time going to bars,
Speaker 4: coffee shop.
Speaker 2: Nobody calls anybody.
Speaker 4: Nobody calls anybody anymore, and that is very important because
Speaker 4: the social networks that form are messy. They teach us
Speaker 4: to make compromises, and they give us a lot of rich,
Speaker 4: contextual information about our lives.
Speaker 2: Do you blame the tech CEOs who run those companies?
Speaker 1: Oh, we might as well. Why not?
Speaker 2: Well, because it is an interesting time where you are
Speaker 2: seeing lawsuits against social media companies meta platforms. We keep
Speaker 2: referencing this in their latest earnings. I think it was
Speaker 2: two billion dollars for certain lawsuits and they said it
Speaker 2: was a material impact on the company. And it's just
Speaker 2: the beginning of lawsuits from our reporting team. But I
Speaker 2: do wonder what is their responsibility? And this goes to
Speaker 2: you get into this too, like the people who run
Speaker 2: these firms, and they're very wealthy and very influential. And
Speaker 2: I don't think I'm speaking out of turn. And we
Speaker 2: talked about having a seat at the table, the political table.
Speaker 2: We don't. It's people with their deeper pockets. Well, you
Speaker 2: are very influential, Carolin, but we actually you are very
Speaker 2: But anyway, but of.
Speaker 4: Course we all have responsibility. We all have responsibility. And
Speaker 4: you know what, let's take one step back. If democracy
Speaker 4: is in crisis, we are all responsible because democracy requires active, vigilant,
Speaker 4: participating citizens.
Speaker 2: Why are why aren't people more active?
Speaker 4: I think we took some of these things for granted,
Speaker 4: we've gone down the path of sort of easy sort
Speaker 4: of life, and some of what democratic citizenship requires is messy.
Speaker 4: Some of the things that we should do in our
Speaker 4: communities are costly, like for example, giving you know, you
Speaker 4: get very little benefit from that other than the pride
Speaker 4: that you're contributing to something. And people used to do
Speaker 4: that much more and they do that much less. That's
Speaker 4: just a symbolic thing that shows that if you don't
Speaker 4: create the right narrative, the right sort of way of
Speaker 4: drawing on our responsibilities, people that are going to start
Speaker 4: withdrawing a little bit and then a little bit more,
Speaker 4: and then a little bit more, and then the result
Speaker 4: is we're not participating in communities and we're not participating
Speaker 4: to defend democracy.
Speaker 3: But I can't help but think of the changing view
Speaker 3: that Americans have about democracy in recent years. And I
Speaker 3: think back to the Democratic National Convention in twenty twenty
Speaker 3: four and the core message from Democrats and it was
Speaker 3: I'll never forget this. I was watching this on TV.
Speaker 3: I watched the Republican one as well, but they played
Speaker 3: this video that was basically the highlight reel of January sixth,
Speaker 3: and it was, you know, Carol and I were on
Speaker 3: air covering January sixth when it happened. We were speaking
Speaker 3: to our colleagues who were at the capital, who were,
Speaker 3: you know, felt under attack. And I remember watching that
Speaker 3: and thinking, wow, you know, there's no way that Trump
Speaker 3: is going to win this election because Americans are being
Speaker 3: reminded of this, right, right, right. But it's like January
Speaker 3: sixth never happened to so many people, including lawmakers who
Speaker 3: stand side by side with the president, and at one
Speaker 3: point we're very critical of him, and I'm just curious.
Speaker 3: It's like, does that stuff not matter in today's age or.
Speaker 2: Does it or does that really matter to show that
Speaker 2: there are people who somehow feel like I don't have representation.
Speaker 2: I'm looking for another way. I don't know if that's
Speaker 2: part of well.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think, look, it also gets to the
Speaker 3: court and we'll talk about economics. But it's like, obviously
Speaker 3: it was what voters felt like. You know, they were
Speaker 3: driven by economic issues at the poles, not democracy issues.
Speaker 4: I think they were driven by motivated by economic issues,
Speaker 4: and they were also reacting to Biden's presidency that they
Speaker 4: thought in some ways didn't work very well. And I
Speaker 4: think part of the reason why January six was not
Speaker 4: front ten center, it's cognitive dissonance. Once they said they
Speaker 4: were going to vote for the Republican alternative because we
Speaker 4: want to vote against the establishment, and right now the
Speaker 4: establishment is Biden and the left you know, is always
Speaker 4: more at the center of liberal democracy because it was
Speaker 4: you know, things like the New Deal liberalism or the
Speaker 4: social democracy in Europe that led the charge. So it's
Speaker 4: more associated with establishment. So nenti establishment feeling turns against
Speaker 4: that and then cognitive dissonance. I don't want to hold
Speaker 4: two conflicting thoughts in my mind. I'm going to support Trump. Well,
Speaker 4: then I'll downplay January sixth. But the media eco says,
Speaker 4: played a very important role. If the media ecosystem was integrated, yeah,
Speaker 4: and the communities were integrated, that would be much harder
Speaker 4: because your brother, you wouldn't be fighting with your brother
Speaker 4: and he would remind you look or or don't you
Speaker 4: forget January sixth. But today, either in your community there
Speaker 4: is nobody who has an opposite view to yours, or
Speaker 4: if they do, the situation has become so polarized that
Speaker 4: you don't listen to them because you think of them
Speaker 4: as the enemy, even when they are your brother. And
Speaker 4: that's really not very productive. But that's in again, an
Speaker 4: ecosystem that we've created. We don't need to be in
Speaker 4: that ecosystem, do you think.
Speaker 2: And we're going to take a break and then come
Speaker 2: back and talk some more. In terms of social media companies,
Speaker 2: technology companies, there needs to be some kind of greater
Speaker 2: regulation over them. In terms of these platforms because they
Speaker 2: are so influential.
Speaker 4: Yes, absolutely, So let's take a step back. And democracy
Speaker 4: needs citizenry, as we discussed, but that needs to be
Speaker 4: informed citizenry. So information relevant for politics in some level
Speaker 4: is a public good and if it becomes very polluted,
Speaker 4: it makes things very difficult. So imagine that a mayor
Speaker 4: takes important steps and shows how you can rebuild your community,
Speaker 4: provide better public services, improve things, you mean the job
Speaker 4: of the mayor, for example, But then social media presents
Speaker 4: that as a complete failure to everybody.
Speaker 1: That's going to create.
Speaker 4: Real difficulties now. But it's a very delicate issue. Liberalism,
Speaker 4: as I said, has to spend four starts to stand
Speaker 4: for freedoms, and freedom of speech is critical.
Speaker 2: And even if you don't believe in that or it's
Speaker 2: a controversial position.
Speaker 4: I am. I am a free speech absolutist. I think
Speaker 4: individuals should be free to express their opinion, but I
Speaker 4: don't think free speech extends to algorithms. So I should
Speaker 4: be able to say whatever you want. I want you
Speaker 4: should be able to say whatever you want, Carol. But
Speaker 4: then if algorithms take the worst of what we say
Speaker 4: and amplify that, that's not freedom of speech, that's manipulation.
Speaker 4: So that's why we need to put some rules for algorithms.
Speaker 4: For example, one thing that would work is if we
Speaker 4: go back to the MySpace day without algorithmic feed you
Speaker 4: on social media. TikTok wouldn't work because it's exactly based
Speaker 4: on this algorithmic feed model, but the other ones would work.
Speaker 4: Facebook could work where just like before, you would go
Speaker 4: and listen to or watch the videos from your friends
Speaker 4: and neighbors or the trusted news sources, but not from
Speaker 4: the most incendiary sources that have been just fed to
Speaker 4: you by the algorithm. That would at one fell swoop
Speaker 4: really change the dynamics of how we communicate.
Speaker 2: And the financial structure of that business.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the other Why do you think they're
Speaker 1: doing it?
Speaker 2: No, I know exactly.
Speaker 3: It all comes down to that one word engagement, which
Speaker 3: is what you know investors care about.
Speaker 2: I want to get to a question from Brendan if
Speaker 2: I made her Brendan from Maryland. His question is what
Speaker 2: is the meaning of participatory citizenship when so few have
Speaker 2: so much and so many are in need.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that's a great question because money plays
Speaker 4: a role in politics, and if we do not regulate
Speaker 4: how money is used.
Speaker 2: Go ahead, drink and we'll just say Brendan, thank you
Speaker 2: for sending that message.
Speaker 4: In Yes, thank you, great question. So if we do
Speaker 4: not regulate how money is used in politics, then one person,
Speaker 4: one vote doesn't really mean much. There are several political
Speaker 4: scientists who have documented that members of the House and
Speaker 4: Senate listen much more to their wealthier constituents. And then
Speaker 4: it's no surprise that most Americans say, you know, elected
Speaker 4: representatives don't speak for us.
Speaker 3: That's who they're exposed to at fundraisers.
Speaker 2: If you go, that's what they need to get elected.
Speaker 3: They need money to get elected, They need wealthy people
Speaker 3: to donate the money. They go, they interact with them.
Speaker 1: And I'm going to argue that social status.
Speaker 4: Social status is very tied to money too.
Speaker 3: But isn't the toothpaste out of the tube at this
Speaker 3: point you said, if we need to take there isn't
Speaker 3: money is the Supreme Court said that, you know, there's
Speaker 3: essentially no limit to this.
Speaker 4: I know that's a problematic decision. And you know it's
Speaker 4: also intersect with what I just said. If corporations have rights,
Speaker 4: perhaps algorithms have rights, then we should give free speech
Speaker 4: to algorithm. No, no, don't. I don't think we want
Speaker 4: to think about it that way. It's the individuals and
Speaker 4: communities that should participate in politics, not corporations per se.
Speaker 4: Of course, humans form corporations, and those humans have their
Speaker 4: own say they don'ts need to agree. I can be
Speaker 4: in the same firm as you, we can have very
Speaker 4: different political views. So giving that corporation sort of the
Speaker 4: fiduciary or not, I mean, like the legal representation as
Speaker 4: if it's an individual, you know what happens to our disagreements.
Speaker 2: So two things I think we want to touch on
Speaker 2: because then we only have unfortunately about six minutes, so
Speaker 2: AI helpful, hurtful, We don't.
Speaker 4: Know all to play for. There is no doubt in
Speaker 4: my mind. AI is a transformative technology. You can already
Speaker 4: see it, and it's going to advance even further. But
Speaker 4: if AI goes in the direction of automating more and
Speaker 4: more jobs, displacing workers, making many occupations obsolete, and the
Speaker 4: people who used to perform them dispensable. I think that's
Speaker 4: not consistent with either shared prosperity or with liberal democracy,
Speaker 4: because remember, liberal democracy requires us as citizens participate, and
Speaker 4: that's part of the Dignity of work is part of that.
Speaker 4: Having the means, having the importance in public life is
Speaker 4: part of that. If we create a two tier society
Speaker 4: with a lot of people who don't have a job
Speaker 4: or who are marginally employed, that's going to be a
Speaker 4: big challenge. But here is the catch. There is nothing
Speaker 4: in AI that says it should creating equality or it
Speaker 4: should automate work. AI is the best information technology ever invented.
Speaker 4: It can provide us very relevant information for problem solving,
Speaker 4: for doing our jobs better, for doing new things. And
Speaker 4: that's the idea that I call pro worker AI. Developing
Speaker 4: AI in a way that's not going to sideline workers,
Speaker 4: but make workers more productive at what they do, more
Speaker 4: central to the production process. And that's critically not just
Speaker 4: for educated workers. Imagine plumbers and electricians, many of whom
Speaker 4: are doing critical work for us and are underpaid, and
Speaker 4: we need more of them. Imagine them becoming better and better.
Speaker 4: Both the training of these trades improves, but more importantly,
Speaker 4: with better problem solving capabilities. With better information in their hands,
Speaker 4: they can do many more things and that's going to
Speaker 4: be so important if we can go in that direction.
Speaker 3: Are these massive firms that we talk about each and
Speaker 3: every day developing pro work AI.
Speaker 1: No, that's the problem. That's the problem.
Speaker 4: So if you want to look at how grass is,
Speaker 4: how full, you're absolutely right, Tim, that's not where we're going.
Speaker 4: But I don't think we should lose hope because if
Speaker 4: we suddenly had a change of heart among the young,
Speaker 4: amazing talent that goes into the tech sector and said no,
Speaker 4: rather than chase this dream of AGI artificial general intelligence,
Speaker 4: artificial superintelligence, we want to do things that are helpful
Speaker 4: for how people communicate. Our workers, including nurses, educators, plumbers, electricians,
Speaker 4: really do their job, we'll get them. It's not actually
Speaker 4: that hard to develop these technologies. It's much easier than
Speaker 4: developing super intelligent physicists. But that's not where we're putting
Speaker 4: our eggs.
Speaker 2: Do we need the government to get us? I mean,
Speaker 2: what's a company to say, I'm about making money. I'm
Speaker 2: going to go that path, which is a capitalistic society.
Speaker 2: If you become public, you want to reward your shareholders
Speaker 2: like it.
Speaker 4: I think the government has a role to play. But
Speaker 4: let me make two other points. Carol's. First of all,
Speaker 4: I don't think that developing pro worker AI would be
Speaker 4: a money losing proposition. If you're a company, if you
Speaker 4: can make your workers more productive, that's also beneficial for you.
Speaker 4: But it's only a mindset for a manager to say
Speaker 4: labor is a cost. I'm going to try to eliminate it.
Speaker 4: Labor is also your asset. And also tech companies that
Speaker 4: develop successful technologies of this sort, there will be markets
Speaker 4: for it. Whether at the margin will be more or
Speaker 4: less profitable than other things. You know, details will determine that,
Speaker 4: But it's not going to be a money losing proposition
Speaker 4: if it's really worthwhile to do right, But we need
Speaker 4: to get there, and that's not where we are. The
Speaker 4: government has an important role, so does democratic society. These
Speaker 4: technologies are going to influence all of us. All of
Speaker 4: our lives are going to be shaped by it. But
Speaker 4: by the way, we are fortunate in the United States
Speaker 4: because they are going to shape the lives of another
Speaker 4: six billion people who don't live in the United States
Speaker 4: and in China, but they have no say. We at
Speaker 4: least have a say, we're still a democracy. Liberal democracies
Speaker 4: in crisis, but we're still a democratic nation, so we
Speaker 4: can influence those things, and it's just the right time
Speaker 4: to do it.
Speaker 2: We just have about a minute and a half left
Speaker 2: in the beginning.
Speaker 1: There's so much more to discuss, so you're going to
Speaker 1: have to come back.
Speaker 2: But you say, the path ahead is not easy. Forging
Speaker 2: working class liberalism is a tall order in the best
Speaker 2: of times, and much more challenging in today's polarized environment
Speaker 2: with little trust in institutions and elites. Still, we have
Speaker 2: no alternative but to try. If liberalism does not remake itself,
Speaker 2: it will be anti liberal, anti democratic alternatives such as
Speaker 2: new oligarchies, authoritarianism, ethno nationalism, deep rooted hierarchy, or renewed
Speaker 2: extreme progressive movements that will win out. So the alternative
Speaker 2: is not great.
Speaker 4: It's not great at all. But the way that I
Speaker 4: see it is like I draw an analogy with the
Speaker 4: Roman Empire. You can say the Roman Empire collapsed because
Speaker 4: the Barbarians were very strong, but I think that's the
Speaker 4: wrong perspective. The Roman Empire collapsed because it had lots
Speaker 4: of problems inside, and that enabled the barbarians to exploit it.
Speaker 4: It's the same with liberal democracy. We have problems inside
Speaker 4: liberal democracy. We didn't live up to our promises we
Speaker 4: are to our great potential, and that has made those
Speaker 4: anti establishment ideas, some of them very ugly, something that
Speaker 4: people turn to in reaction. So if liberalism remakes itself,
Speaker 4: I think it still has a lot of momentum.
Speaker 1: You have faith, I have faith, I have hope.
Speaker 2: Do we have the right people to do it?
Speaker 1: No, that's to be continued.
Speaker 2: So watch things like midterms and things. Yeah, come back please,
Speaker 2: I would love to. Okay, we would love it too.
Speaker 2: This was a treat we were looking forward to it.
Speaker 2: So delighted, Devron, thank you, thank you. Derone Smoglu he is,
Speaker 2: of course the author of the book What Happened to
Speaker 2: Liberal Democracy? Remaking Up Politics of Shared Prosperity. He's a
Speaker 2: Nobel laureate. He's an instide professor in the Department of
Speaker 2: Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and he's my
Speaker 2: daughter's like role model. This is Bloomberg