WEBVTT - History’s Sobering Warning About America’s Future 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:07.440 Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News. 0:00:16.000 --> 0:00:19.480 Welcome to our final episode of the voter Nomics series 0:00:19.520 --> 0:00:23.480 where Politics and Markets Collide. I'm Stephanie Flanders. 0:00:23.079 --> 0:00:25.520 I'm Adrian Woodridge, and I'm alegra Stratton. 0:00:26.280 --> 0:00:29.960 So we set up this podcast with the working thesis 0:00:30.000 --> 0:00:33.720 that this year of elections would not just reshape politics, 0:00:33.840 --> 0:00:36.400 but teach us some lessons along the way about the 0:00:36.400 --> 0:00:41.680 conflict between politics and economics. Now that year is nearly over, 0:00:41.720 --> 0:00:44.279 we've got most of the elections behind us. We're not 0:00:44.320 --> 0:00:47.319 forgetting the Garnian elections on December seventh, and I think 0:00:47.360 --> 0:00:49.960 we now have German elections coming up in the next 0:00:49.960 --> 0:00:51.880 few months. But we did think this was a good 0:00:51.920 --> 0:00:55.000 moment to reflect on how all of those votes have 0:00:55.400 --> 0:00:58.960 panned out and what it means for markets and economies. 0:00:59.360 --> 0:01:01.960 A bit later, we're going to speak to Peter Turchin, 0:01:02.120 --> 0:01:06.880 professor and author whose recent book End Times, Elites, Counter 0:01:07.000 --> 0:01:11.600 Elites and the Path of Political Disintegration offers a pretty 0:01:11.600 --> 0:01:15.080 overarching explanation for all of it, not just America's division 0:01:15.160 --> 0:01:18.720 and civil strife, but the device of politics we're seeing 0:01:18.880 --> 0:01:20.880 around the world. He says it's all part of a 0:01:20.920 --> 0:01:26.440 basic cycle of integrating and disintegrating forces within societies. That 0:01:26.560 --> 0:01:30.200 gets repeated again and again throughout history. And before you 0:01:30.280 --> 0:01:32.720 dismiss all that, you should know that he first predicted 0:01:32.840 --> 0:01:35.280 we would do one of these cycles back in twenty ten. 0:01:35.959 --> 0:01:40.399 But first, Adrian Allegra, it's a big question. But maybe Adrian, first, 0:01:40.440 --> 0:01:43.160 what are the big themes that you're taking away. 0:01:43.319 --> 0:01:47.119 Well, it's a year of anti incumbency votes overwhelmingly, not 0:01:47.120 --> 0:01:49.800 not quite in India, but almost in India. That is 0:01:50.480 --> 0:01:55.120 to some extent driven by inflation. And you know, we've 0:01:55.120 --> 0:01:58.040 had inflation ripping through the economies of the world and 0:01:58.080 --> 0:02:03.240 creating a lot of annoying about existing ruling classes or 0:02:03.280 --> 0:02:06.760 existing political regimes. But I would have add two qualifications 0:02:06.800 --> 0:02:12.760 to that over arching view. One is that despite the 0:02:12.800 --> 0:02:16.200 anti incumbency things, this anti incumbascy revolution has tended to 0:02:16.240 --> 0:02:19.720 resolve in favor of the right rather than the left. 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:22.000 You know, it hasn't been the Corbyns of this world 0:02:22.040 --> 0:02:24.840 that have been leading the anti incumbassy revolution. It's been 0:02:24.880 --> 0:02:26.880 the Trumps. It's been people on the right in general. 0:02:27.000 --> 0:02:30.239 Written a bit of an exception, but overwhelmingly it's a 0:02:30.280 --> 0:02:35.200 sort of populist right wing movement. And secondly, America wasn't 0:02:35.520 --> 0:02:38.080 entirely an anti incumbency vote. It was a sort of 0:02:38.120 --> 0:02:40.960 restoration vote. You know, people voted for the guy who 0:02:41.080 --> 0:02:45.280 was in charge in twenty sixteen because they perceive him 0:02:45.280 --> 0:02:47.600 to be a stronger person, perceived that a better age 0:02:47.720 --> 0:02:50.920 than one that the Democrats had created. So anti incumbency 0:02:51.000 --> 0:02:54.320 driven by inflation, but a strong flavor of the populis right, 0:02:54.400 --> 0:02:57.679 and some extent a restoration of the old Trump order 0:02:57.720 --> 0:03:00.840 in the most important of these elections, which is United States. 0:03:01.000 --> 0:03:03.920 So for me, I think one big theme very similar 0:03:03.960 --> 0:03:06.760 to Adrian's what a surprise. But then actually other than that, 0:03:06.800 --> 0:03:09.760 I don't I think it's quite difficult to see themes. So, yeah, 0:03:09.800 --> 0:03:12.600 inflation is the big killer. It's really hard to get 0:03:12.639 --> 0:03:14.880 back in if people have been made to feel even 0:03:14.880 --> 0:03:18.040 if things getting better, people have been made to feel poorer. 0:03:18.360 --> 0:03:20.320 We did say at the beginning of the series that 0:03:20.680 --> 0:03:24.680 one term governments might get more likely people are dissatisfied 0:03:24.720 --> 0:03:27.000 and choppiness is the result. And I think if you 0:03:27.000 --> 0:03:29.720 look at the actual results, I mean, Adrian's sort of 0:03:29.880 --> 0:03:34.560 sweep is right, but actually the French election, Macrong reduced 0:03:34.560 --> 0:03:37.320 his number of seats, but actually it was the left 0:03:37.640 --> 0:03:40.280 that were victorious there, not per se the far right. 0:03:40.640 --> 0:03:44.480 In the UK, you had a landslide for Starma. I 0:03:44.520 --> 0:03:47.840 think that we were worried about the rise of misinformation 0:03:47.920 --> 0:03:50.720 and so on. We questioned how much social media would 0:03:50.720 --> 0:03:54.360 play a part. In the end, it was podcasts that possibly, 0:03:54.600 --> 0:03:57.280 if not won it, then swayed it in America. I 0:03:57.320 --> 0:04:00.720 am uncomfortable saying they are kind of left right findings 0:04:00.720 --> 0:04:01.880 that were really clear. 0:04:02.080 --> 0:04:03.560 One thing for me, and it maybe that I've been 0:04:03.600 --> 0:04:06.840 thinking too much about the book that we're discussing later 0:04:07.280 --> 0:04:12.160 in the episode. But the economic blowback was very much 0:04:12.200 --> 0:04:15.920 about the legacy of COVID for the economy, and there 0:04:15.960 --> 0:04:20.080 was a reaction to the inflation that had come after 0:04:20.240 --> 0:04:23.000 COVID and possibly the sort of mismanagement of some of 0:04:23.040 --> 0:04:26.279 the response to COVID, and that obviously was one of 0:04:26.279 --> 0:04:30.839 the overwhelming things driving dissatisfaction with the economy, whether in 0:04:30.880 --> 0:04:35.119 the US or elsewhere, but there's also been a react 0:04:35.160 --> 0:04:37.359 in many places. There was also a reaction to the 0:04:37.400 --> 0:04:39.800 lockdowns and to what that had done to people, the 0:04:39.880 --> 0:04:43.960 isolation that had brought, the impact on schools. It felt 0:04:44.000 --> 0:04:46.960 like there had been a sort of building reaction which 0:04:47.000 --> 0:04:50.920 I think a lot of sort of mainstream opinion had 0:04:50.960 --> 0:04:55.160 just underestimated how wounded people felt and were angry at 0:04:55.160 --> 0:04:58.320 the way that COVID not just not about parties and 0:04:58.400 --> 0:05:01.440 number ten or anything else, but about the lockdowns and 0:05:01.480 --> 0:05:06.880 how the inequity that demonstrated in society, the people who 0:05:06.960 --> 0:05:09.200 could work from home versus the people who couldn't, the 0:05:09.200 --> 0:05:11.599 people who were at schools that found it quite easy 0:05:11.640 --> 0:05:14.120 to work from home, and versus the vast majority who work. 0:05:14.360 --> 0:05:16.960 When you mix in with that, immigration, which is probably 0:05:16.960 --> 0:05:20.640 the second biggest feature driving a lot of these elections, 0:05:21.240 --> 0:05:25.360 there is that feel of a scarcity of resources and 0:05:25.400 --> 0:05:28.120 the focus on the haves and the have not. And 0:05:28.160 --> 0:05:30.880 it's not just money, it's housing and being able to 0:05:30.960 --> 0:05:35.160 afford housing. It's schools being full of immigrants. So it's 0:05:35.279 --> 0:05:37.520 very striking because it does feel like a throwback to 0:05:37.960 --> 0:05:38.920 earlier times. 0:05:39.240 --> 0:05:41.440 I think there's a sense in which there's a feeling 0:05:41.520 --> 0:05:43.640 of the elites getting it wrong again. The elites, when 0:05:43.640 --> 0:05:46.080 they were in charge of the global financial system says 0:05:46.080 --> 0:05:49.479 that we can regulating all this finance, and we're in charge, 0:05:49.480 --> 0:05:50.680 and we'll be able to do it. And in fact 0:05:50.680 --> 0:05:53.559 two thousand and eight came along and they got it wrong, 0:05:54.000 --> 0:05:57.400 and the elites united behind the idea of the lockdown, 0:05:57.800 --> 0:06:00.599 with Sweden as the big exception. And there's a sort 0:06:00.640 --> 0:06:03.600 of in retrospect more and more of a sense that actually, 0:06:04.040 --> 0:06:05.720 they may have got it wrong. This may have been 0:06:05.720 --> 0:06:09.320 a judgment call. That was that they overreacted and they 0:06:09.440 --> 0:06:11.680 used their power to lock us down in all sorts 0:06:11.680 --> 0:06:16.960 of ways, which was a and overreaction, exposed the over 0:06:17.120 --> 0:06:19.520 zealousness of the state. But also they didn't always apply 0:06:19.520 --> 0:06:21.719 it to themselves, which is why the parties in number 0:06:21.720 --> 0:06:24.839 ten and Dominic Cummings and the rest were so important 0:06:24.839 --> 0:06:27.040 to them. And also I think that the thing that 0:06:27.120 --> 0:06:30.440 the last point that you talked to, which is immigration, 0:06:30.560 --> 0:06:33.920 I think we're at the beginning, not at the end 0:06:34.240 --> 0:06:39.760 of concerns, anxieties, the backlash against immigration, and this is 0:06:39.839 --> 0:06:44.039 going to sweep through European societies and indeed American and 0:06:44.160 --> 0:06:46.479 has swept through American society in a way that's going 0:06:46.560 --> 0:06:51.640 to be extremely discombobulating to those elites unless they can recalibrate. 0:06:51.720 --> 0:06:55.640 And I would point to the example of Denmark versus Sweden. 0:06:55.720 --> 0:07:00.720 Sweden took in as many immigrants as will want it, 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:03.719 and is now going through a massive reaction against that. 0:07:03.800 --> 0:07:06.440 Denmark was much much more control and it's not a 0:07:06.480 --> 0:07:09.440 big political political issue in Denmark. So I think this 0:07:09.560 --> 0:07:13.280 populist wave will be more driven in the future. Even 0:07:13.320 --> 0:07:17.440 if inflation is tamed, immigration will drive it and continue 0:07:17.440 --> 0:07:20.680 to push politics towards the bopylist right in Europe. 0:07:20.800 --> 0:07:22.880 I agree with both of you that the effect of 0:07:22.920 --> 0:07:25.400 lockdown and the pandemic on the UK election and on 0:07:25.480 --> 0:07:29.720 elections around the world has been under reflected on. But 0:07:29.960 --> 0:07:34.160 the aspect I find most challenging is the economic one, 0:07:34.200 --> 0:07:36.240 which is because I think you guys have touched on 0:07:36.320 --> 0:07:38.160 the sort of social aspects of telling people to not 0:07:38.240 --> 0:07:40.360 leave their homes and so on, which still to this 0:07:40.480 --> 0:07:43.480 day is extraordinary, isn't it. But it's more the furlough 0:07:43.800 --> 0:07:48.160 and other bits of economic policy were extremely expensive. That's 0:07:48.240 --> 0:07:51.559 partly why we've then got to a general election where 0:07:52.280 --> 0:07:55.280 a conservative government of all governments has found themselves defending 0:07:55.280 --> 0:07:57.880 having put up taxes and people feeling very kind of 0:07:58.360 --> 0:08:02.520 beleaguered financially. But actually, if we think back to the pandemic, 0:08:02.680 --> 0:08:05.200 we had a situation where the government was paying people's 0:08:05.240 --> 0:08:07.920 wages to not go out. For me, that kind of 0:08:08.000 --> 0:08:12.600 dissonance between Wow, there's a huge amount of financial support 0:08:12.640 --> 0:08:15.720 that flowed from the central government to the people, but 0:08:15.800 --> 0:08:18.440 it was quite quickly forgotten. I'm not saying it shouldn't 0:08:18.480 --> 0:08:20.880 have been forgotten. People move on very quickly, but I 0:08:20.920 --> 0:08:23.640 think there was an economic lag to that that had 0:08:23.640 --> 0:08:26.800 a political consequence. And one of the disappointments for me 0:08:27.000 --> 0:08:30.120 about the COVID inquiry is that if we have another pandemic, 0:08:30.200 --> 0:08:32.360 what is the right way to handle it? Is the 0:08:32.400 --> 0:08:35.880 right way to handle it furlough and huge central government programs, 0:08:36.200 --> 0:08:38.599 and of course your challenges are right around is the 0:08:38.679 --> 0:08:41.120 right way of lockdown and so on? And we didn't 0:08:41.160 --> 0:08:44.000 really see the inquiry go into that. And obviously that's 0:08:44.120 --> 0:08:47.319 slightly marginal issue compared to all these elections we've had 0:08:47.320 --> 0:08:50.480 this year, But equally, if we have another pandemic or 0:08:50.520 --> 0:08:54.439 another phenomenon that challenges our sense of the nation state 0:08:54.679 --> 0:08:58.440 and the fundamental need for a government to protect people's 0:08:58.440 --> 0:09:01.480 health and so on, what's the right response and what's 0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:05.280 the response that doesn't mean that you are bringing up 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:09.400 your national debt and your levels of expenditure to eyewatering levels. 0:09:10.240 --> 0:09:13.360 What about technology? We're not talking very much about technology 0:09:13.440 --> 0:09:17.880 or Russian interference or the political processes being revolutionized by AI. 0:09:18.120 --> 0:09:21.040 Was this a year in which the technology dog didn't bark? 0:09:21.520 --> 0:09:23.360 We saw a few, didn't we We saw a few 0:09:23.440 --> 0:09:27.320 sort of fake news and manipulated images, but we didn't 0:09:27.360 --> 0:09:31.960 see it be that instrumental turning factor in an election. 0:09:32.160 --> 0:09:32.199 No. 0:09:32.600 --> 0:09:35.120 I think it's hard to say. I think that the 0:09:35.240 --> 0:09:39.560 very obvious misinformation sort of AI produced videos and things 0:09:39.600 --> 0:09:43.240 like that didn't happen. But I mean, when you consider 0:09:43.520 --> 0:09:48.520 that the election campaign that different people in America saw 0:09:49.040 --> 0:09:52.400 over the last year was completely different, and we're only 0:09:52.520 --> 0:09:55.679 just beginning to get our heads around how much X 0:09:55.920 --> 0:10:00.160 has changed the way it's feeding things to people. We 0:10:00.240 --> 0:10:04.920 had also quite old school techniques around direct mailings to 0:10:05.040 --> 0:10:08.679 people that were providing quite a lot of misinformation about 0:10:08.720 --> 0:10:12.080 candidates in different places, targeting Jewish voters to say a 0:10:12.080 --> 0:10:15.679 certain thing, and targeting Muslim voters for other things. And 0:10:15.720 --> 0:10:19.960 ironically that's all enabled by technology because you can send 0:10:20.000 --> 0:10:22.040 it to the right person, but it's actually even more 0:10:22.080 --> 0:10:24.559 below the radar because it's not online. 0:10:24.640 --> 0:10:27.080 You could argue the opposite case that this was a 0:10:27.120 --> 0:10:30.240 case of very old style politics that Biden clung on 0:10:30.320 --> 0:10:33.200 to power for too long. It was too arrogance, he 0:10:33.320 --> 0:10:36.960 was too insensitive that he put in a deputy who 0:10:37.000 --> 0:10:39.160 is really not very good, and partly did that deliberately 0:10:39.160 --> 0:10:41.960 because he didn't want to be challenged. And the Democrats 0:10:42.000 --> 0:10:45.120 said enough stupid things that you didn't need lots of 0:10:45.160 --> 0:10:47.920 AI to invent stupid things for them to say. 0:10:48.000 --> 0:10:50.360 Especially if it's selectively quoted. But no, I think you're 0:10:50.360 --> 0:10:52.439 absolutely right, Adrian. I was going to go to a 0:10:52.520 --> 0:10:54.840 last question, which was just the one that I think 0:10:55.040 --> 0:10:57.679 was raised by many people at the beginning of the year, 0:10:57.800 --> 0:11:00.880 which is is it going to be a good year 0:11:00.920 --> 0:11:04.400 for democracy? We have all these elections. Was it a 0:11:04.440 --> 0:11:04.840 good year? 0:11:05.480 --> 0:11:08.840 Broadly yes, I would say broadly yes. There wasn't social breakdown, 0:11:08.840 --> 0:11:11.920 there wasn't a lot of a lot of violence. We 0:11:12.040 --> 0:11:14.760 got a clear result in the United States, which was 0:11:15.240 --> 0:11:19.600 the big thing that we were worried about, and bad 0:11:19.960 --> 0:11:25.080 incumbents were punished, not always good rivals being promoted instead. 0:11:25.120 --> 0:11:26.959 But yeah, I think it was a world in which 0:11:27.280 --> 0:11:30.640 democracy did its thing and adjusted to popular sentiment. 0:11:31.040 --> 0:11:34.600 Looking at the UK, I think I'll make two different arguments. 0:11:34.760 --> 0:11:37.640 One is that you saw a level of sophistication in 0:11:37.720 --> 0:11:41.960 how people were voting potentially tactically in various areas, and 0:11:42.280 --> 0:11:44.800 there's some evidence of that in France as well. So 0:11:44.840 --> 0:11:48.720 firstly that, but secondly, I think that our election in 0:11:48.760 --> 0:11:51.800 the UK was sort of marked for what wasn't said 0:11:52.160 --> 0:11:55.040 and how things have sort of since then been gone 0:11:55.120 --> 0:11:57.760 back on, and I think that is something that will 0:11:58.320 --> 0:12:02.120 leave many people on unsettled that you could have an 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:05.400 election of six weeks fought on particular issues and then 0:12:05.440 --> 0:12:08.200 actually in the months afterwards some of that is gone 0:12:08.240 --> 0:12:10.560 back on. And that is not just a criticism of 0:12:10.600 --> 0:12:13.200 how Labour won the election. Other parties did it too, and. 0:12:13.200 --> 0:12:15.640 The UK maybe has some slight exception to this. But 0:12:15.720 --> 0:12:18.240 I think I agree with Adrian that it was a 0:12:18.240 --> 0:12:21.560 good year for democracy as an instrument, because it has 0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:25.800 expressed the people's will pretty effectively in most countries and 0:12:26.640 --> 0:12:30.120 power has shifted to those who inspired more support. I 0:12:30.160 --> 0:12:33.960 think it's another extremely difficult year for the political center, 0:12:34.160 --> 0:12:37.160 and in France we sort of they've cobbled together a 0:12:37.160 --> 0:12:39.800 center right coalition, but I think it was another year 0:12:39.840 --> 0:12:43.840 in which we see fewer and fewer voices at the 0:12:43.880 --> 0:12:47.480 center of politics, in the middle ground of politics, where 0:12:47.520 --> 0:12:52.600 compromise is possible, actually able to command the support of voters. 0:12:53.120 --> 0:12:55.280 And I think in the US you have both parties 0:12:55.320 --> 0:12:57.080 going to the extremes. 0:12:57.559 --> 0:12:59.480 I think the great challenge your head is for the 0:12:59.480 --> 0:13:04.120 center to reassert itself, rethink its basic principles, and to 0:13:04.320 --> 0:13:08.800 try and produce a program that satisfies and addresses the 0:13:08.840 --> 0:13:11.840 discontent of regular people while addressing the need for orderly 0:13:11.840 --> 0:13:13.199 and sensible government. 0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:14.800 Because otherwise I think you do have to worry about 0:13:14.800 --> 0:13:16.439 the health of democracy long term. 0:13:16.520 --> 0:13:17.120 Absolutely. 0:13:22.600 --> 0:13:25.800 In twenty ten, Peter Urchin made a prediction that the 0:13:25.840 --> 0:13:29.080 next decade was quote likely to be a period of 0:13:29.320 --> 0:13:33.800 growing instability in the United States and Western Europe. His 0:13:34.000 --> 0:13:39.840 models developed over many years showed instability could well spike 0:13:40.280 --> 0:13:44.720 around the year twenty twenty. Now, if we look back, 0:13:45.160 --> 0:13:48.080 that seems like a pretty good prediction, and an awful 0:13:48.160 --> 0:13:51.080 lot of things have happened since. That seemed to support 0:13:51.600 --> 0:13:55.360 the big themes and cycles that he identified in history 0:13:55.400 --> 0:13:58.360 and that led him to that prediction. Churchin is a 0:13:58.400 --> 0:14:01.800 project leader at the Complexity Science Hub in Vienna and 0:14:01.840 --> 0:14:05.760 a research associate at the University of Oxford. Also Professor 0:14:05.800 --> 0:14:09.560 Emeritus at the University of Connecticut. He has written many 0:14:09.600 --> 0:14:15.839 books related to his analysis of history going back centuries, 0:14:16.240 --> 0:14:19.800 and his latest one is End Times, Elites, Counter Elites, 0:14:19.960 --> 0:14:24.120 and the Path of Political Disintegration. Peter, thank you very 0:14:24.200 --> 0:14:28.800 much for being our valedictory guest on voter Nomics. You 0:14:28.920 --> 0:14:31.960 get to be part of our reflections on the past year, 0:14:32.160 --> 0:14:35.800 but you're taking as giving us a much longer perspective 0:14:35.800 --> 0:14:40.720 with this book and the cycles that you identify. There's 0:14:40.720 --> 0:14:42.560 so much to go into, and I know that there's 0:14:42.560 --> 0:14:45.400 far too much to summarize in a fairly short interview, 0:14:45.840 --> 0:14:48.760 but I think your basic point is that there are 0:14:48.800 --> 0:14:54.680 cycles which are set off by equilibrium or disequilibrium between 0:14:54.720 --> 0:14:58.680 the number of ruling elites and the majority. And I 0:14:58.680 --> 0:15:01.280 think particularly, I think for me was very striking is 0:15:01.640 --> 0:15:07.720 the critical role that overproduction of elites plays in triggering 0:15:07.800 --> 0:15:13.120 a period of political disintegration and ultimately crisis. So if 0:15:13.160 --> 0:15:15.640 you're able to summarize just to give us a brief 0:15:15.680 --> 0:15:19.720 sense of how that equilibrium disequilibrium works. 0:15:19.480 --> 0:15:23.680 Well, First of all, I defined elites as simply power holders. 0:15:24.040 --> 0:15:27.720 Social power is ability to influence the behavior of other 0:15:27.760 --> 0:15:33.440 people right, and that takes several routes economic power, political power, 0:15:34.080 --> 0:15:37.240 military power, and so and so forth. Now, my research 0:15:37.280 --> 0:15:41.960 group has been studying literally hundreds of past societies leading 0:15:42.040 --> 0:15:46.040 into crisis in an emergence from them, and we found 0:15:46.400 --> 0:15:50.360 that the common precursor to the crisis is what you 0:15:50.440 --> 0:15:55.280 call elite overproduction. It really should be said overproduction of 0:15:55.440 --> 0:16:00.120 aspirant elits, those pupil elite when avis people who desire 0:16:00.160 --> 0:16:03.720 to feel for our positions. I like it in the 0:16:03.800 --> 0:16:07.200 book to a game of musical chairs, but except like 0:16:07.280 --> 0:16:10.920 an usual game where you keep removing chairs, you keep 0:16:10.960 --> 0:16:14.400 the number of chairs constant, but instead you increase the 0:16:14.520 --> 0:16:18.400 number of players. So it's certainly the original eleven players 0:16:18.400 --> 0:16:22.320 for ten chairs, but then fifteen to twenty authority fority. You 0:16:22.360 --> 0:16:26.960 can imagine the kios that would result as the numbers 0:16:27.080 --> 0:16:31.200 of losers who when you of home become angry increases 0:16:31.360 --> 0:16:34.720 so dramatically, and so the same thing happens in the 0:16:34.800 --> 0:16:38.880 run up to crisis. There's really a universal feature of 0:16:39.040 --> 0:16:42.480 those what do you call structural genographic crisis in our 0:16:42.560 --> 0:16:44.400 technical language. 0:16:44.960 --> 0:16:46.720 You have many examples, and you go back through a 0:16:46.760 --> 0:16:49.280 lot of European history. I think the striking ones that 0:16:49.320 --> 0:16:51.680 you use to crystallize people's thoughts at the beginning of 0:16:51.680 --> 0:16:55.080 the book is that the run up to the American 0:16:55.160 --> 0:17:01.320 Civil War and Abraham Lincoln's election in a similar time 0:17:01.400 --> 0:17:04.800 in the nineteenth century, also the Typing rebellion and the 0:17:04.840 --> 0:17:08.120 threat to the ruling order that happened in China which 0:17:08.200 --> 0:17:13.119 killed potentially tens of millions of people, and used to 0:17:13.200 --> 0:17:16.720 draw comparisons between those two, and also what we're seeing 0:17:16.760 --> 0:17:20.639 now tell us how those two fit the pattern that 0:17:20.760 --> 0:17:24.600 you're discussing, and then also sort of now give us 0:17:24.640 --> 0:17:26.359 an insight into what's happening now. 0:17:27.240 --> 0:17:29.960 Yes, well, as you mentioned, my research group studies the 0:17:30.040 --> 0:17:34.280 dynamics of complex societies organized as states. 0:17:34.320 --> 0:17:35.800 We shall been around for about. 0:17:35.560 --> 0:17:39.280 Five thousand years, and you know that for a while, 0:17:39.359 --> 0:17:43.040 maybe a century or so, they can actually enjoy intermal 0:17:43.080 --> 0:17:46.280 peace and order, and then they get into periods of 0:17:46.320 --> 0:17:50.960 social discombobulation, political disintegration, and the search, which we call 0:17:51.200 --> 0:17:55.520 end times. Right, So, these end times happened on the 0:17:55.640 --> 0:18:00.600 rough diedle of maybe about a couple hundred centuries. Previous 0:18:01.160 --> 0:18:05.680 wave of revolutions and civil wars was is what historians 0:18:05.920 --> 0:18:09.800 called the Age of revolutions which started in seventeen eighties 0:18:10.760 --> 0:18:16.359 and ran into eighteen sixties and seventies. So the American 0:18:16.400 --> 0:18:19.280 Civil War ended typeing rebellion that you mentioned got part 0:18:19.400 --> 0:18:23.240 of this world wide wave of revolutions in civil wars. 0:18:23.520 --> 0:18:27.160 Here in Europe we had revolutions of eighteen forty eight 0:18:27.440 --> 0:18:31.119 that affected most major countries except for a British Empire. 0:18:31.200 --> 0:18:33.920 By the way, we can talk about why it did 0:18:33.960 --> 0:18:38.080 not happen in UK in any case, because this is 0:18:38.119 --> 0:18:42.440 the previous complete wave of revolutions, you know how it ended. 0:18:42.920 --> 0:18:45.760 Now you don't know what's gonna what the future holds 0:18:45.840 --> 0:18:48.640 for us, right because we cannot really predict the future, 0:18:48.960 --> 0:18:52.720 but you know how it all ended in the previous 0:18:52.800 --> 0:18:55.560 wave of revolutions. And that's why, because it's to the 0:18:55.600 --> 0:18:59.399 closest to us in time, and the societies were quite 0:18:59.440 --> 0:19:02.520 similar when you waste That's why it gives us a 0:19:02.640 --> 0:19:07.000 very useful map for understanding where we are now. 0:19:07.520 --> 0:19:09.800 I suppose one of the great analysis of the over 0:19:09.840 --> 0:19:13.879 production of elites is Topville's The French Revolution and the 0:19:14.080 --> 0:19:17.160 regime in which you know that is the ultimate cause. 0:19:17.200 --> 0:19:19.639 I think he puts to the to the breakdown of 0:19:19.640 --> 0:19:22.600 the regime. But I wanted to think a little bit 0:19:22.640 --> 0:19:27.080 about diversity, because what we've seen over the last ten 0:19:27.119 --> 0:19:31.080 to twenty years is a simultaneous development of the overproduction 0:19:31.160 --> 0:19:34.959 of elites, so people are scrabbling for jobs, and an 0:19:35.160 --> 0:19:38.600 enormous emphasis by organizations, particularly in the United States but 0:19:38.640 --> 0:19:42.440 also everywhere else on diversity, on the idea that if 0:19:42.520 --> 0:19:46.160 there are two people for an elite job, but then 0:19:46.160 --> 0:19:49.600 we should put our thumb on the scale of the 0:19:49.640 --> 0:19:53.280 ethnic minority candidate, or the female candidates, or the diverse 0:19:53.320 --> 0:19:56.879 candidate in various ways. And that combination of these two doctrines, 0:19:57.440 --> 0:20:00.400 of this doctrine of diversity plus the over production leads 0:20:00.680 --> 0:20:05.840 seems to have driven the explosion of Trumpism. Would you 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:06.440 agree with that? 0:20:07.040 --> 0:20:10.320 Let me step back and see that, actually, in more 0:20:10.359 --> 0:20:17.280 general terms, the ideological content of revolutionary parties or sides 0:20:17.359 --> 0:20:21.920 in civil wars, that's various, right, So in the previous 0:20:21.960 --> 0:20:23.880 way of revolutions, it was liberalism. 0:20:23.960 --> 0:20:25.240 Before that, it was. 0:20:25.720 --> 0:20:29.120 The Crisis of the seventeenth century, it was religion. In 0:20:29.160 --> 0:20:31.679 the late medieval crisis, it was like the game of 0:20:31.760 --> 0:20:37.600 thrones essentially, So then content changes depending on circumstances. 0:20:37.880 --> 0:20:38.640 But what is. 0:20:38.600 --> 0:20:42.800 Invariable is that the road to crisis is driven by 0:20:43.400 --> 0:20:46.400 several factors, two of which are the most important ones. 0:20:46.440 --> 0:20:48.719 First of all, popular inveseration. 0:20:48.960 --> 0:20:51.720 It is just what happened in the run up to 0:20:51.760 --> 0:20:55.360 the French Revolution that you mentioned. In fact, the trigger 0:20:55.640 --> 0:21:01.240 was the increasing prices of food, and then riots, urban 0:21:01.320 --> 0:21:03.399 riots and so on and so forth. But by that 0:21:03.520 --> 0:21:07.000 point there was a huge number of elite one abs 0:21:07.160 --> 0:21:13.320 and they are the ones who channeled and organized popular 0:21:13.960 --> 0:21:17.960 discontent to overthrow the uncild regime. And this is a 0:21:18.119 --> 0:21:22.320 very very generale thing. In fact, today when we go 0:21:22.440 --> 0:21:24.920 back to look at the United States, what we see 0:21:25.000 --> 0:21:29.639 we see the revolt of counter elites, right, because I 0:21:29.760 --> 0:21:34.240 consider the elections of this year on November five as 0:21:34.280 --> 0:21:39.720 a successful battle in that ongoing revolutionary wars between the 0:21:39.960 --> 0:21:43.920 ruling class, which was represented by the Democratic Party and 0:21:44.240 --> 0:21:47.800 the country leits which have found their home in the 0:21:47.840 --> 0:21:48.840 Republican Party. 0:21:49.040 --> 0:21:51.280 The reason why I think diversity is so important is 0:21:51.320 --> 0:21:54.919 that diversity is about we're talking about the allocation of 0:21:55.040 --> 0:21:59.240 scarce goods, of goods that getting scarcer, and what diversity 0:21:59.480 --> 0:22:04.080 is is a principle for allocating those scarce goods, which 0:22:04.119 --> 0:22:06.960 has losers as well as winners. And a lot of 0:22:06.960 --> 0:22:10.480 those losers, whether they were poorer people or richer people, 0:22:11.119 --> 0:22:16.000 coalesced around Trump. There were you know, a lot of men, 0:22:16.480 --> 0:22:18.800 a lot of people who didn't have the right credentials, 0:22:18.840 --> 0:22:21.560 a lot of people who felt that they were being 0:22:21.640 --> 0:22:24.440 a bit done down, and amongst ethnic minorities, people who 0:22:24.480 --> 0:22:28.800 were business people rather than members of the credential deletes. 0:22:28.880 --> 0:22:32.800 So I think diversity is a particularly dangerous thing in 0:22:32.880 --> 0:22:37.359 an era of scarce resources, or of a perception of 0:22:37.359 --> 0:22:39.680 scarce resources. But I wonder if you could say something 0:22:39.680 --> 0:22:43.080 a bit more about the counter elites, as it were. 0:22:43.560 --> 0:22:46.879 I'm just thinking, for example, to what extent does Trump 0:22:47.000 --> 0:22:52.879 represent the revolts of family businesses against big public corporations. 0:22:52.920 --> 0:22:53.600 For example? 0:22:55.359 --> 0:22:58.040 What are these counter elites and is what is driving 0:22:58.080 --> 0:22:59.640 their annoyance with the status quo? 0:23:00.119 --> 0:23:02.760 Well, first of all, that's historical. 0:23:02.800 --> 0:23:07.280 Examples of counter elits are Lagid religion and the bolshidiits 0:23:07.280 --> 0:23:12.960 in Russia, or Fidel Castro and Los Barbudos in Cuba. 0:23:13.400 --> 0:23:15.640 All right, So what happens is that, remember we talked 0:23:15.680 --> 0:23:18.439 about this game of musical cheers. As a number of 0:23:18.520 --> 0:23:23.639 angry losers increases, some of them accept downward social mediolity 0:23:24.080 --> 0:23:26.800 and don't make trouble. But a certain proportion of them 0:23:27.240 --> 0:23:30.200 are actually they turned into counter It's now their goal 0:23:30.400 --> 0:23:34.360 is that they have not made it in the following 0:23:34.400 --> 0:23:35.280