Speaker 1: Welcome to zero. I'm Akshadrati this week what the new
Speaker 1: world order looks like. We are living in a fragmenting world.
Speaker 1: It's a cliche, but it's true. It took two decades
Speaker 1: to get to the Paris Agreement, and then global cooperation
Speaker 1: really lasted only one decade. As of this year, it
Speaker 1: looks like most major emitateurs are dialing down their ambition.
Speaker 1: Sure it's only the US that has pulled out of
Speaker 1: the Global Pact, but both China and India, the two
Speaker 1: largest carbon polluters, have signaled caution about their own efforts
Speaker 1: to cut emissions over the next decade, even as I
Speaker 1: should note the need for climate action has only become
Speaker 1: more urgent, and of course climate is in the only
Speaker 1: victim of a fragmenting world. Wars are hurting people, and
Speaker 1: trade wars are hurting economies. One key reason for this
Speaker 1: fragmentation is the US under President Donald Trump, who has
Speaker 1: been taking an axe to the so called rules based
Speaker 1: international order that the US had championed for eighty years.
Speaker 1: So it's left many people thinking about what comes next.
Speaker 1: One of the most interesting analyzes I've read on this
Speaker 1: topic comes from Gordon la Forge, a senior policy analyst
Speaker 1: at the think tank New America. He wrote a piece
Speaker 1: for bloomber Weekend with the headline the new World Order
Speaker 1: will be more cooperative and more dangerous. The danger part
Speaker 1: I am keenly aware of, but the cooperation part took
Speaker 1: me by surprise. As a global challenge, theory tells us
Speaker 1: we need a global solution for climate change, but Gordon
Speaker 1: argues that perhaps we don't need all countries to act simultaneously.
Speaker 1: So how exactly will such a world work? That's the
Speaker 1: main question I had for him, But as you'll hear,
Speaker 1: it's a much wider ranging converse and surprisingly hopeful. If
Speaker 1: you have feedback, questions or guests suggestions for the show,
Speaker 1: please get in touch at zero Pod at bloomberg dot net.
Speaker 1: Now here's my conversation with Gordon Loveforge. Welcome to the show, Gordon,
Speaker 1: Thank you very nice to be here. Now let's start
Speaker 1: with this phrase, the rules based international order. It is
Speaker 1: something that we hear politicians throw around kind of all
Speaker 1: the time when they're talking about the world these days,
Speaker 1: but they don't really define it. So before we find
Speaker 1: out how exactly it's being destroyed, tell us what does
Speaker 1: it mean and how has it benefited the world.
Speaker 2: So I think it goes back to at the end
Speaker 2: of World War Two, the United States and the Western
Speaker 2: democracies especially set up a system that tried to enshrine
Speaker 2: some values in a set of institutions. These were values
Speaker 2: such as territorial integrity, self determination, free trade, human rights,
Speaker 2: and these were expressed in a set of multilateral institutions,
Speaker 2: and they were backed up by American military power and
Speaker 2: economic power. And I think the thing to note is
Speaker 2: that always, you know, Mark Carney, in a speech he
Speaker 2: gave n Davos in January, used the phrase pleasant fictions.
Speaker 2: So there was this set of rules, but the United
Speaker 2: States neglected them as it saw a fit when it's
Speaker 2: when they conflicted with its interests. They were imperfectly applied,
Speaker 2: and they didn't always stick to these rules. But nonetheless
Speaker 2: there was an expectation in the international system that you
Speaker 2: couldn't invade other countries, that you should maintain human rights,
Speaker 2: that free trade was good, expanding market access was something
Speaker 2: to be desired, and there were problem solving institutions where
Speaker 2: if there were debates, you could take it to the WTO.
Speaker 2: The UN was established to prevent prevent war and to
Speaker 2: provide a place where, in a formal way, countries could
Speaker 2: adjudicate their disputes. So there was a set of rules,
Speaker 2: even though they were imperfectly applied, as I mentioned.
Speaker 1: And so Trump comes in now and he starts hacking
Speaker 1: at this rules based order. He raises trade barriers, he
Speaker 1: kills heads of states, he threatens to take over entire countries.
Speaker 1: But it's not like he's the first world leader to
Speaker 1: do so in this post World war period. And as
Speaker 1: you say, even the US before Donald Trump has, because
Speaker 1: of its pleasant fictions, avoided these rules when it felt
Speaker 1: like So why is it that the order is being
Speaker 1: threatened now just because this US president is doing all
Speaker 1: these things?
Speaker 2: I think the way to think about what Trump is
Speaker 2: doing is that he is signaling the final up. Sure,
Speaker 2: he's putting the nail on the coffin of the order.
Speaker 2: It had already been in decline for at least two decades.
Speaker 2: I think the Iraq War, the global financial crisis, the pandemic,
Speaker 2: all of these demonstrated that the system was ineffective and
Speaker 2: fundamentally unfair. Climate change has put massive pressure and exposed
Speaker 2: the unfairness of the system. Where you have the countries
Speaker 2: who are responsible for global warming, who emitted you know,
Speaker 2: throughout history, they're the ones who are now not paying for,
Speaker 2: you know, the developing countries to respond to climate change.
Speaker 2: The countries that are most vulnerable to the effects of
Speaker 2: climate change are the ones who are least responsible for it.
Speaker 2: And the system isn't fair. So there's been a recognition
Speaker 2: for a while that the system was unfair, the system
Speaker 2: was ineffective, it wasn't provided the cooperation we needed to
Speaker 2: on solving these different transnational challenges. Trump came in and
Speaker 2: I think he accelerated this, and I think he made
Speaker 2: a lot of people realize that the system had failed
Speaker 2: because he kind of explicitly disavowed these premises that America
Speaker 2: had upheld, the pleasant fictions. He just threw them out
Speaker 2: the window. And now you see the United States acting
Speaker 2: in a completely irresponsible, aggressive way, starting wars, trashing allies.
Speaker 2: What I observe is that he doesn't seem to agree
Speaker 2: with the view that this system advanced US interests and
Speaker 2: supported US power, and he's now acting just like a someone.
Speaker 2: We are calling the US a rogue state in the system,
Speaker 2: which isn't an unfair characterization right.
Speaker 1: Now, and the unfairness of this system. I mean, you
Speaker 1: raised the climate point, which we've talked about on the
Speaker 1: show a few times, but maybe let me give you
Speaker 1: a concrete example from a very sprint field. So this
Speaker 1: is something I learned from my wife's PhD thesis. She
Speaker 1: did her PhD in international taxation, and she was working
Speaker 1: on trying to figure out how do multinational companies get
Speaker 1: taxed and how can they be fairly taxed by developing
Speaker 1: countries where they are now finding most of their customers.
Speaker 1: You know, your Coca Cola customers are really in developing
Speaker 1: countries now rather than in developed countries. And what she
Speaker 1: found as she was doing the research is that a
Speaker 1: this is something she knew I learned, which is there
Speaker 1: is no global tax system. It's all bilateral treaties signed
Speaker 1: between countries, and those treaties start from a starting point
Speaker 1: that was created by the League of Nations, which was
Speaker 1: an organization created by the colonial powers, and the way
Speaker 1: the rules were set at that time heavily biased those
Speaker 1: tax revenues going back to developed countries to rich countries
Speaker 1: where most of the corporationsisted then and many of them
Speaker 1: have continued to live. But then we had the creation
Speaker 1: of tax havens, these island nations that were giving you
Speaker 1: zero tax for your corporations to exist, which started to
Speaker 1: take away tax revenue from the US and from Europe.
Speaker 1: And that's when they woke up and they're like, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: the system was supposed to work for us. It's not
Speaker 1: working anymore. So we're going to try and come up
Speaker 1: with a global tax system, which is what the OECD
Speaker 1: tried to do. It's gone nowhere yet fully anyway, But
Speaker 1: this is sort of how deep the unfairness of this
Speaker 1: rules based order has been. Something as fundamental as the
Speaker 1: tax system that drives countries has been set up on
Speaker 1: these unfair rules. So now this system is either being
Speaker 1: shown for what it is and is being broken down
Speaker 1: by the very country that tried to put it together.
Speaker 1: And with it, we will lose some of the advantages
Speaker 1: as you laid out, maybe for rich countries, and maybe
Speaker 1: we lose some of the disadvantages. But the biggest immediate
Speaker 1: problem that comes is there's this risk of maybe the
Speaker 1: world just gets thrown into chaos. You argue that actually
Speaker 1: there is a new system already emerging. What do you
Speaker 1: mean if.
Speaker 2: You look at structurally what's been happening in the world.
Speaker 2: You have a lot of countries that have more power
Speaker 2: than they did before. When this system was initially set up,
Speaker 2: un only had fifty one member states. You know, academics
Speaker 2: say they're actually around like seventy to one hundred real
Speaker 2: nation states, but now they're more than one hundred and
Speaker 2: nine to ninety three nations. Economic power has dispersed to
Speaker 2: developing countries in the global South. A lot of middle
Speaker 2: powers have risen. I think there's been a big ongoing
Speaker 2: shift that is underappreciated from nation states to non state
Speaker 2: actors like corporations and goos. They've assumed a lot more
Speaker 2: power in the system. And the system is highly connected
Speaker 2: and continues to be so that there has been an
Speaker 2: idea that globalization is dead because of the pandemic and
Speaker 2: because of all the protectionism that we're seeing, but trade
Speaker 2: is increasing year on year. We're very connected through digital networks,
Speaker 2: through a movement of peoples, through pretty much every metric
Speaker 2: you can think of. So so structurally you have a
Speaker 2: world that continues to be very connected. You have more
Speaker 2: actors that have more agency and power than ever before.
Speaker 2: The withdrawal of the United States from the system and
Speaker 2: the end of US hegemony. You could consider that like
Speaker 2: a shock to the supply of international cooperation and the
Speaker 2: provision of public goods in the system. But demand is
Speaker 2: still really high. We have more transnational challenges than ever.
Speaker 2: I mean, climate is been put on the i think
Speaker 2: the back burner of the international agenda right now, but
Speaker 2: it's not going to stay on the back burner. It's
Speaker 2: going to continue to to express itself in lots of
Speaker 2: challenging ways for countries, and countries are going to have
Speaker 2: to come together to solve it. So there are more
Speaker 2: actors with more agency, there's more capacity, and there's more
Speaker 2: demand to solve all these problems together. So I think
Speaker 2: there's a set of issues for which you're still going
Speaker 2: to see a lot of cooperation, and you might even
Speaker 2: see more cooperation because there's no longer the expectation that
Speaker 2: the United States and this kind of concentrated system in
Speaker 2: these big institutions is going to provide all of it.
Speaker 2: You already see a lot of instances of middle powers
Speaker 2: and non state actors forming and leading coalitions to solve
Speaker 2: distinct challenges. I mean what Mia Motley has done with
Speaker 2: the Bridgetown Initiative, bringing together a coalition that includes France
Speaker 2: and Kenya and lots of donors and philanthropists that is
Speaker 2: trying to reform the international financial architecture in order to
Speaker 2: make it more equitable. You'll see I think a lot
Speaker 2: of activity like this. It'll be messy, it won't fit
Speaker 2: into neat institutions, it'll be fluid. But I think that
Speaker 2: will happen alongside the phenomenon you rightly characterized, which is
Speaker 2: that there is a lot of disorder. And I think
Speaker 2: security is one issue where it really does pay to
Speaker 2: have a principle in the high school, who keeps bullies
Speaker 2: in check, who enforces a set of rules, who has
Speaker 2: the big stick and can check countries if they're trying to,
Speaker 2: you know, be aggressive or invade other countries. And the
Speaker 2: US was playing that role, and again it didn't play
Speaker 2: that perfectly, and it was highly selective in how it
Speaker 2: applied that power. But with that gone, I think there
Speaker 2: is now a lot of its right to say that
Speaker 2: there is a law of the jungle kind of mentality
Speaker 2: that has taken over. When it comes to security. You know,
Speaker 2: we're seeing the biggest military build up globally in decades.
Speaker 2: I believe since the beginning of World War two, nuclear
Speaker 2: proliferation is back on the table. You have even Japan
Speaker 2: and South Korea or contemplating getting the bomb. So I
Speaker 2: think both of these things are going to coexist in
Speaker 2: the new world. It's it's the new world order we're
Speaker 2: entering into. It's going to be messy, it's going to
Speaker 2: be complex, but I see more potential for cooperation alongside
Speaker 2: more peril and danger.
Speaker 1: I want to come to all those things in one sequence.
Speaker 1: But let's look at the point that you make, which
Speaker 1: is that the world is actually more connected than ever before.
Speaker 1: I mean, some of the numbers that you have in
Speaker 1: your Peace and Bloom we kind are kind of astonishing that,
Speaker 1: you know, the US three is as it's tara from
Speaker 1: two percent to ten percent. And yet there's more trade,
Speaker 1: international trade that's going to happen in twenty twenty five
Speaker 1: and maybe in twenty twenty six, who knows, But there
Speaker 1: was more foreign direct investment sort of rose fourteen percent
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty five. There's also more interconnection, just in
Speaker 1: the fact that we are more connected through our devices,
Speaker 1: through the Internet, and information travels so quickly around the world,
Speaker 1: and more people are aware of what's happening on the
Speaker 1: other side of the world, which in a we sort
Speaker 1: of supported climate action because sort of twenty eighteen twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: the period where we were seeing protests in European countries,
Speaker 1: that was feeding in other parts of the world, and
Speaker 1: there was a desire for more climate action. So, in reality,
Speaker 1: it is a more connected world. And yet why does
Speaker 1: it feel like it's fragmenting.
Speaker 2: Well, it is. It is both more connected, but it
Speaker 2: is fragmenting in important ways. There are divergences in political systems,
Speaker 2: even digital networks. You know, there was the famous line
Speaker 2: that Bill Clinton had in the nineties where he said
Speaker 2: China's attempts to cut itself off from the global Internet
Speaker 2: and apply a firewall is like trying to nail jello
Speaker 2: to a wall. And he turned out to be very
Speaker 2: wrong about that. China has very successfully created its own
Speaker 2: Internet and firewalled itself off from the world. So there
Speaker 2: is the reality of hyperconnectivity. There is also the realization
Speaker 2: of that by states and very effective ways of weaponizing
Speaker 2: interdependence and connectivity. You think of all the different choke
Speaker 2: points in digital systems, in the energy system, we're seeing
Speaker 2: a very clear example of this right now in the
Speaker 2: Strait of Hormuz, where I think countries are trying to
Speaker 2: exploit the interconnections to leverage power and assert themselves. I
Speaker 2: mean also ideologically, like, nationalism is still i'd say, the
Speaker 2: most dominant ideology on the planet. It's really remarkable when
Speaker 2: you think in previous eras there were ideological competitors. There was,
Speaker 2: you know, a big competition between communism and capitalism, even
Speaker 2: you know, having a theocracy. You know, should there be
Speaker 2: in the Muslim world, should there be a caliphate, should
Speaker 2: we have a religious system there? Really, I mean, there
Speaker 2: isn't any strong ideological competitor to nationalism nowadays. There is
Speaker 2: good reason for fragmentation. There is a lot of fragmentation
Speaker 2: in the world. But there is also this fundamental reality
Speaker 2: of hyper connectivity, and you see it in the flow
Speaker 2: of goods, in the flow of services. I think, the
Speaker 2: reality of how we consume information. I mean you mentioned that.
Speaker 2: You know, obviously the Internet has enabled data, information content
Speaker 2: to travel around the world, but the design of the
Speaker 2: devices that we use, the design of the communications networks
Speaker 2: is such that we become isolated in our own filter bubbles,
Speaker 2: and so it doesn't it doesn't feel, you know, like
Speaker 2: we're connected. It's kind of a paradox. There are a
Speaker 2: lot of paradoxes in the world right now, and one
Speaker 2: of them is that we're more connected than ever, yet
Speaker 2: we feel more isolated than ever. We feel more alone
Speaker 2: and separate than ever, and I think that's primarily because
Speaker 2: of the way we're consuming information and how it's coming
Speaker 2: to us.
Speaker 1: And then you reach this point that the middle powers
Speaker 1: didn't come together. I mean, this idea is not a
Speaker 1: new idea, but it definitely got a big boost when
Speaker 1: Prime Minister marccarney of Canada talked about it at the
Speaker 1: World Economic Forum in January. What he stopped short of,
Speaker 1: and something that I hoped we would see more examples of,
Speaker 1: is what does it look like when middle powers come together?
Speaker 1: Give me some examples.
Speaker 2: I don't think that there will be a quote unquote
Speaker 2: middle power order that is cohesive and coherent in the
Speaker 2: way that you like the NATO security alliances. I think
Speaker 2: middle powers will come together around specific issues and needs
Speaker 2: in fluid, shifting, opportunistic ways. In the essay, I use
Speaker 2: the term polyamorous geopolitics, which is a little provocative, but
Speaker 2: I think it accurately characterizes kind of the nature of
Speaker 2: the relationships between countries. Some examples I mentioned. You know,
Speaker 2: the Bridgetown initiative is one where you have Barbados leading.
Speaker 2: You know, Barbados is in a middle power, but it's
Speaker 2: a small power who has co opted France and Kenya
Speaker 2: in the relationship. Another example from climate which has not
Speaker 2: been successful, but the just energy transition partnerships with South
Speaker 2: Africa and Indonesia, which you know is a donors financiers.
Speaker 2: You probably know far more about how this has transpired.
Speaker 2: That is the I think the right kind of coalition,
Speaker 2: like a mini lateral coalition of state and non state
Speaker 2: actors to try and provide, you know, a specific lever
Speaker 2: to advance the energy transition. In practice, the tools have
Speaker 2: proven to be the wrong ones for advancing that, given
Speaker 2: that it's all in loans and been issues in Indonesia
Speaker 2: with the captive coal plants that are powering the smelters,
Speaker 2: so that hasn't been successful. But I think that is
Speaker 2: the kind of you know, when Mark Karney used to
Speaker 2: phrase variable geometry coalitions around specific issues and needs, I
Speaker 2: think in trade we're moving away. You know, the WTO
Speaker 2: has ceased to function and you're moving towards kind of
Speaker 2: a messy array of plurilateral relationships where you're having different
Speaker 2: regional trade agreements. The TPP, even though the United States
Speaker 2: withdrew for it, has evolved and merged into something much greater.
Speaker 2: So there's kind of a messy a messy array of
Speaker 2: powers that are involved around specific issues and needs. So
Speaker 2: I think it is again it's fluid, it shifts. I
Speaker 2: think you'll see in public health se North Africa has
Speaker 2: launched an MR and a hub that involves private actors
Speaker 2: and involves other countries and the goal there being to
Speaker 2: increase manufacturing capacity and development for vaccines if there's another
Speaker 2: public health emergency like COVID. So I think there are opportunities,
Speaker 2: but as I said, I don't think there will be
Speaker 2: a single cohesive coalition of middle powers that emerges. It
Speaker 2: could be wrong, but I think the interests are too diverse.
Speaker 2: And again this is demand driven. Where is their need
Speaker 2: to cooperate on transnational issues or to advance certain interests.
Speaker 1: After the break, more of my conversation with Gordon lave Forge.
Speaker 1: If you're enjoying this episode of Zero, please take a
Speaker 1: moment to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 1: YouTube and Spotify. It makes the algorithms happy and helps
Speaker 1: more people find the show. In the climate case, there
Speaker 1: was for a long time this case that given it's
Speaker 1: a global challenge, and given we need to reach zero emissions,
Speaker 1: because that's the only way to halt warming, that all
Speaker 1: countries will have to act, and that meant, you know,
Speaker 1: it took two decades to broker the priors agreement from
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety five for the first COP to COP twenty one,
Speaker 1: and of course we know it's not worked as well
Speaker 1: as it should have worked. Finally you had an agreement.
Speaker 1: Because of the way the agreement came together, there was
Speaker 1: no enforcement mechanism. Countries had to peer pressure each other
Speaker 1: into becoming more ambitious. And now that there are tensions
Speaker 1: in the world, countries like China and India have east
Speaker 1: on their own efforts. They might do more, but they
Speaker 1: don't want to say they're going to do more. But
Speaker 1: then when I talked to experts on how exactly should
Speaker 1: we try and climate change if it is not the
Speaker 1: UN system, many say that maybe there's a different global
Speaker 1: agreement that we have to come to. But if you
Speaker 1: start from scratch, you still have to come to a
Speaker 1: global agreement to act because this requires all countries to
Speaker 1: get to zero emissions. But you think there can be
Speaker 1: other ways in which we can still act on climate.
Speaker 2: How exactly the fundamental assumption of first the Kyoto Protocol
Speaker 2: and then I mean later the Paris Agreement, but the
Speaker 2: Kyoto Protocol and the UNF Triple C it was built
Speaker 2: on the example of the Montreal Protocol, and I think
Speaker 2: it's a case where we took the example or the
Speaker 2: case of a simple linear problem and tried to apply
Speaker 2: it to a very complex, larger problem. So for Montreal,
Speaker 2: it was an agreement to ban the use of CFCs
Speaker 2: to prevent the hole in the ozone layer. You had
Speaker 2: a very specific set of industrial chemical The same companies
Speaker 2: that CFCs also created the replacement for them that didn't
Speaker 2: harm the ozone layer, So there wasn't a lot of
Speaker 2: cost to switching, it turned out, and you could get
Speaker 2: a binding treaty for countries to ban this. It was
Speaker 2: a relatively simple problem. Trying to do the same thing
Speaker 2: with carbon dioxide and methane emissions, it's completely different. Pretty
Speaker 2: much every feature of the modern economy produces these greenhouse
Speaker 2: gas emissions as a byproduct, so you're talking about systemic
Speaker 2: transformations of the food system, of the transportation system, of
Speaker 2: the energy system, of all these very complex, interlacking systems.
Speaker 2: The idea that you could have one single agreement or
Speaker 2: target that all countries would sign up to to try
Speaker 2: and solve that problem, I think was just a misplaced assumption,
Speaker 2: an admirable one, like a good attempt, But I think
Speaker 2: the failure. I think that Paris is kind of an
Speaker 2: acknowledgment that that approach doesn't work for the problem. Paris
Speaker 2: shifted us towards, you know, more of a bottom up
Speaker 2: voluntary reductions regime, and that also, you know, in the
Speaker 2: in the face of domestic pressure and these fundamental questions
Speaker 2: about unfairness. You know, if you are a country who
Speaker 2: is trying to beat poverty and develop, why should you
Speaker 2: reduce your emissions when the United States and Europe got
Speaker 2: rich and profitable and advanced off of burning all these
Speaker 2: emissions in the first place and causing the problem. I
Speaker 2: don't think it necessarily is harmful to have the UNFC
Speaker 2: Triple C and the Paris Agreement, but actual action is
Speaker 2: going to come, I don't know, in a variety of
Speaker 2: very messy ways. Another thing about the new order that
Speaker 2: we're entering into. That I think is interesting is one
Speaker 2: of the main functions of American hegemony was to secure
Speaker 2: her global oil markets and to secure the free transit
Speaker 2: of oil to like support you know, the fossil fuel system.
Speaker 2: We're seeing that with the crisis and the Strait of
Speaker 2: Hormuz that when you take away American leadership over that system,
Speaker 2: you know, you now have a lot of countries in
Speaker 2: Asia that are hastening their adoption of renewables and making
Speaker 2: that more of a priority because you can no longer
Speaker 2: depend on the global oil market to function as it
Speaker 2: was before. So there's a side effect there of the
Speaker 2: new strategic strategic interests that are driving that. Again, I
Speaker 2: don't think there is one single replacement for, you know,
Speaker 2: the Global Grand Bargain on climate, but I think that
Speaker 2: that idea was if not, you know, it doesn't actively
Speaker 2: harm the effort. I don't think it was ever going
Speaker 2: to be achieved, and I think it was too much
Speaker 2: of a challenge to get there.
Speaker 1: Well. But just like you talked about how in the
Speaker 1: world of trade, where an ideal system, as economists would
Speaker 1: want it would be free trade, which has been worked
Speaker 1: on and shown theoretically to be beneficial to more parties
Speaker 1: than would be a system where there are trade barriers,
Speaker 1: and yet we are now living in a world of
Speaker 1: trade barriers and this sort of hotch potch of trade
Speaker 1: deals that countries are signing, which from an economic perspective
Speaker 1: is less efficient, but you argue, is something that is
Speaker 1: more politically resilient, more politically sustainable in the long term.
Speaker 1: We haven't quite yet seen what that would look like.
Speaker 1: In climate There have been attempts, as you pointed, out
Speaker 1: of some groups coming together. I would argue the Bridgetown
Speaker 1: initiative did not get any results out of it. It
Speaker 1: was good to talk about ideas, but we are yet
Speaker 1: to see concrete ideas at scale. There are may be
Speaker 1: one or two examples here in the world. We've talked
Speaker 1: about an example in Brazil that looks at trying to
Speaker 1: lower the cost of currency exchange risks that are perceived
Speaker 1: in developing countries, but they're very handful there. And so
Speaker 1: it feels dangerous to me to think that we can
Speaker 1: pin our hopes on this kind of networked system to
Speaker 1: provide us the solutions that we need to tackle a
Speaker 1: problem like climate change or pick up global pandemics. I
Speaker 1: feel like, you know, great to have South Africa have
Speaker 1: an mRNA initiative, but in the face of another type
Speaker 1: of micro organism which cannot be attacked by mRNA, we
Speaker 1: will still need a different type of technology to address it.
Speaker 1: That will still need us to try and get world
Speaker 1: to work together. And we don't have a system that
Speaker 1: actually attacks a global pandemic that can't be addressed with mRNA.
Speaker 1: So it is a hopeful case you make, but I
Speaker 1: just I can't see the hope in it yet.
Speaker 2: There's no replacement. I mean, states are still the most
Speaker 2: powerful actors in the world. And the choice by the
Speaker 2: Trump Anddministration, for instance, to scuttle the Inflation Reduction Act.
Speaker 2: You probably know the data better than I do, but
Speaker 2: I think the projection is it will set back US
Speaker 2: emissions reductions targets by like two thirds over the next However,
Speaker 2: many years. States still have an immense amount of power
Speaker 2: and it still is good. I don't think we want
Speaker 2: states to abandon international cooperation in any sense. I just
Speaker 2: think the ways that they are going to cooperate are
Speaker 2: not going to occur as much under the big architecture
Speaker 2: of these institutions. As they did before. Multilateralism won't go anywhere.
Speaker 2: By the way, I think the UN will continue to exist,
Speaker 2: like these big institutions will continue to exist and nations
Speaker 2: will use them. All the networks complement that. Whether they
Speaker 2: can provide the replacement that we need to actually solve
Speaker 2: these challenges will remain to be seen. But I do
Speaker 2: believe there is the potential just because again there is
Speaker 2: a lot of demand to do this. A lot of
Speaker 2: this is also rooted in just psychology and politics. If
Speaker 2: we see some catastrophic climate related event, you know, the
Speaker 2: heat wave that kills tens of millions of people that
Speaker 2: is in Kim Stanley Robinson's Ministry for the Future, you
Speaker 2: can imagine that will really prompt a lot of action,
Speaker 2: not just states, but other actors as well. So the
Speaker 2: point is that we shouldn't be pinning our hopes on
Speaker 2: these other actors to do things. But the reality is
Speaker 2: that there are a lot of actors with a lot
Speaker 2: more capacity and agency that are contributing to solving these
Speaker 2: problems because they have a stake in them. Not to
Speaker 2: flatter your boss, but Michael Bloomberg has basically established himself
Speaker 2: as a non state sovereign actor when it comes to
Speaker 2: climate policy. The United States pulled out of the Paris
Speaker 2: Climate Agreement twenty seventeen. He and again, you know, after
Speaker 2: Biden put us back in. Trump again pulled out in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five, and for the second time, Michael Bloomberg
Speaker 2: himself put up the funds for the US contribution to
Speaker 2: the UNF Triple C catalyzed the US Climate Alliance. You know,
Speaker 2: the arrangement of governors and mayors that are going to
Speaker 2: still commit to meeting these emissions targets has provided you know,
Speaker 2: more than a billion dollars in funding to try and help,
Speaker 2: you know, He's make the transition happen, closing coal plants,
Speaker 2: gas infrastructure reductions, all these things. So there are a
Speaker 2: lot of actors that are doing a lot more. In
Speaker 2: a perfect world, states would be doing this, you know.
Speaker 2: But there's also a question of whether states are the
Speaker 2: right actor to solve the problems that emerge from climate change. Specifically,
Speaker 2: Jonathan Blake and Nils Gilman have this concept of planetary subsidy.
Speaker 2: They argue that climate is a is a planetary challenge
Speaker 2: that no state can solve on its own, and most
Speaker 2: states aren't responsible for even the creation of it, but
Speaker 2: then a lot of the impacts and a lot of
Speaker 2: the adaptation happens at the local level. So really it's
Speaker 2: like most of it doesn't occur at the level of state.
Speaker 2: We're operating at the wrong level of political organization that
Speaker 2: you need local and you need planetary governance of it.
Speaker 2: But it shouldn't be states. But again, states are the
Speaker 2: most powerful actors. They're what we have, and so yes,
Speaker 2: we want them to cooperate and we want them to
Speaker 2: work together to solve this, but there's a lot of
Speaker 2: other actors who are involved also.
Speaker 1: But in this planetary subsidiary system, if states aren't the
Speaker 1: right actors for it, who are the actors?
Speaker 2: Well, what they describe doesn't exist yet, right. They're talking
Speaker 2: about the creation of like more supernational institutions that could
Speaker 2: solve and manage these problems at a planetary level. That
Speaker 2: obviously doesn't exist yet it won't from what I see,
Speaker 2: come into existence anytime soon. We have this system that
Speaker 2: we have of states and that remain very powerful. But
Speaker 2: it's an underappreciated shift that has continued to happen that
Speaker 2: where state power in a lot of different issues has
Speaker 2: actually been diminishing even though we live in a time
Speaker 2: of the resurgence of great power politics and attacks on
Speaker 2: civil society and non state actors. And you see the
Speaker 2: US government trying to co opt corporations, especially the tech companies,
Speaker 2: to achieve its goals and make them comply with their preferences.
Speaker 2: But they're often not successful in doing that because a
Speaker 2: lot of these actors have capacities wealth reach that governments
Speaker 2: don't have. States aren't going to go anywhere, But there
Speaker 2: is a shift towards some of these non state actors.
Speaker 1: Yes, there is the theory of change which continues to
Speaker 1: come up in anything to do with climate, which is
Speaker 1: it's politics first and the economics follows, because states tend
Speaker 1: to be powerful actors, and they can shape businesses and
Speaker 1: reshape wealth in a way that no other actor can,
Speaker 1: and so they can drive economics in a particular way,
Speaker 1: and to some extent it makes sense. This is how
Speaker 1: the fossil fuel system got embedded. That is how the
Speaker 1: dollar system got embedded. That is how these unfairness in
Speaker 1: the system, like the tax system exists because the rules
Speaker 1: were created and then laid out. But there's also a
Speaker 1: flip side of it, which is economics can drive politics,
Speaker 1: and you can also equally make a pretty strong case
Speaker 1: for that. I mean the point you're making about billionaires.
Speaker 1: There might be some benine billionaires, but there are also
Speaker 1: evil billionaires and they can take that money and drive politics,
Speaker 1: and we know we've seen that happen in many countries.
Speaker 1: We can also see how global capital which sure there
Speaker 1: are billionaires, but most of the capital is actually among
Speaker 1: asset managers that have capital of everyday people like me,
Speaker 1: and then they can use their own ways to shape politics.
Speaker 1: We know the bond market, for example here in the UK,
Speaker 1: has been able to drive policy changes because it did
Speaker 1: not like what a government did. We know, for example,
Speaker 1: and this is not me saying it. Donald Trump himself
Speaker 1: has said it that he does not want to use
Speaker 1: a nuclear weapon because if he does, the stock market
Speaker 1: will fall like nothing else. And so there are these
Speaker 1: capital flows that can control and shape policy choices, and
Speaker 1: so economics can drive policy. But to me, that world
Speaker 1: feels like a world where we don't see people working
Speaker 1: together in ways to actually solve problems. It just feels
Speaker 1: like distributed power trying to do what it wants, and
Speaker 1: it feels like a much more chaotic world. So I'm
Speaker 1: still struggling to see how network collaboration can happen in
Speaker 1: those places where you say that there is desire for action.
Speaker 1: That is true, we know that polls show that people
Speaker 1: are interested in acting on climate change, But how does
Speaker 1: that desire then translate into a network collaboration That still
Speaker 1: feels like a missing piece to me.
Speaker 2: So in corporations, yes, it's it's not always benign. I
Speaker 2: mean it's there are some who are taking positive action
Speaker 2: and want to do things. This is also not a
Speaker 2: new phenomenon. It's an excellent book by Steve Cole called
Speaker 2: Private Empire about Exon Mobile's foreign policy essentially throughout the decades,
Speaker 2: and Exon Mobile acted as its own like a company
Speaker 2: state from the time of the East India company. The
Speaker 2: tech company today behave in a very similar way and
Speaker 2: have power that many would argue rivals or is even
Speaker 2: greater than what the company states were Like. You know,
Speaker 2: three point five billion people every day use a meta app,
Speaker 2: so it's even infiltrating the thought patterns of people all
Speaker 2: around the world. So there is an immense amount of
Speaker 2: power in private actors right now. I wouldn't argue that
Speaker 2: this translates towards greater cooperation by any means we are
Speaker 2: living in a state of disorder. That's not the question.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't dispute that. I just don't think disorder necessarily
Speaker 2: means chaos and destruction. I think disorder can also produce
Speaker 2: cooperative behavior that will then advance certain goals, depending on
Speaker 2: the interests of all the actors involved. You could argue
Speaker 2: that the bond market forcing Trump to abandon his Liberation
Speaker 2: Day tariffs ort to scale them back considerably, that's a
Speaker 2: positive thing for supporting a system of global cooperation financially. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean you use the phrase the law of the jungle,
Speaker 1: which is something that many people have used to describe
Speaker 1: something should be avoided, like it's a bad thing. But honestly,
Speaker 1: the forest ecosystem there is brutishness in it, but most
Speaker 1: of it is kind of amazing. There are all these
Speaker 1: collaborative ecosystems that exist that allow nature to flourish in
Speaker 1: ways that just because there's a lion in the jungle
Speaker 1: somewhere that is only one part of the forest ecosystem.
Speaker 1: The jungle in itself is pretty amazing, and so in fact,
Speaker 1: we could use the rules of the jungle to improve
Speaker 1: civilization if you really want it to. But let me
Speaker 1: come back to the end of your piece where you
Speaker 1: actually do end on a note of caution, because you
Speaker 1: say that for all the network system that it might
Speaker 1: be able to solve problems, one thing it doesn't work
Speaker 1: for is security. Why is that? Why is there a
Speaker 1: need for a hegemen a bully in the global system?
Speaker 2: History has shown and I don't know, you get deep
Speaker 2: into the roots of human nature. You could go back
Speaker 2: to Hobbes. I guess that when there is a leviathan
Speaker 2: that can provide security, everyone is better off. There are
Speaker 2: bad actors in the world. There's more war now than
Speaker 2: at any point since the end of World War two.
Speaker 2: More countries are in conflict with one another. If there
Speaker 2: is a principle, if there is a you know, a
Speaker 2: leviathan that can provide a check on territorial aggression, on
Speaker 2: the impulses of states to conquer one another and to
Speaker 2: acquire territory, you know that is overall a good thing.
Speaker 2: We're in a situation that is more anarchic from a
Speaker 2: security perspective, and I think if it's better when you
Speaker 2: have when you have a hedgemon, we don't have that
Speaker 2: right now, and there's more conflict. You know that the
Speaker 2: law of the jungle is prevailing when it comes to security.
Speaker 2: There aren't the same checks that there were, and so
Speaker 2: I think while there is potential for cooperation, the danger
Speaker 2: is very extreme and we're seeing it. And I talked
Speaker 2: earlier about nonproliferation, I mean proliferation of nuclear weapons. There's
Speaker 2: the massive global military build up that's underway. The world
Speaker 2: is a lot more dangerous, a lot more insecure, and
Speaker 2: you know, bullies are a lot bolder than they were before.
Speaker 2: There aren't the same checks. There aren't the same systems
Speaker 2: that can prevent countries from going to war with each other.
Speaker 2: So I think it is true that there is an
Speaker 2: unraveling of the global security system. NATO is now in
Speaker 2: serious peril and it's not clear whether it will persist. So, yeah,
Speaker 2: the world is a lot more dangerous. It worked. It
Speaker 2: was a lot more secure if you have one power
Speaker 2: that can kind of maintain a security blanket over the world.
Speaker 1: This hub in view, which comes from this quote that
Speaker 1: is cited often where he says that without a government
Speaker 1: or an authority, life will be solitary, poor, nasty, brutish
Speaker 1: and short, is something that this researcher named Lukemp argues
Speaker 1: is simply not true. He wrote this book called Goliath's Curse,
Speaker 1: which was looking at five thousand years of history of
Speaker 1: civilization and how they collapse, and he finds that actually
Speaker 1: that human nature can be much more altruistic than it's
Speaker 1: been made out to be, and that the civilizations that
Speaker 1: have lasted the longest have actually shown to be much
Speaker 1: more collaborative than having a king or a dictator run them.
Speaker 1: If anything, a king or a dictator tends to be
Speaker 1: the end of a civilization much sooner, and so the
Speaker 1: view is much more complicated than having a hegimen. But yes,
Speaker 1: the recent history might show that to be the case. Now,
Speaker 1: where Luke Kemp's case and we had him on the
Speaker 1: part cast breaks down is that he also notes that
Speaker 1: in this hyper connected global world, we have not had
Speaker 1: a test of civilization of this kind, and so I
Speaker 1: cannot always take what lessons we learned from the collapse
Speaker 1: of past civilizations and neatly map them on the current
Speaker 1: global civilization that we existed. That is the challenge we
Speaker 1: have in front of us. This was a great conversation.
Speaker 1: I thought your essay was fantastic. I hope listeners will
Speaker 1: check it out. You'll put the link in the show notes.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Gordon, actually it is a pleasure, and thank
Speaker 1: you for listening to zero now for the sound of
Speaker 1: the week. That is the unpleasant sound of Iran's shahiddrone
Speaker 1: that's killed many people across the Middle East and damaged infrastructure.
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Speaker 1: This episode was produced by Oscar Boyd with help from
Speaker 1: Moses Andam and Somarsadi. Our theme music is composed by
Speaker 1: Wonderley Special thanks to Lora Milan and shan chan I
Speaker 1: am Akshatrati. Back soon.