WEBVTT - Malcolm Harris on the Radical, Liberating Possibilities of Realism 0:00:01.360 --> 0:00:05.640 Hello, and welcome back to Drilled. I'm Amy Westerveldt. We 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:08.799 have a new season coming for you starting June third, 0:00:09.480 --> 0:00:11.160 but in the meantime, I wanted to bring you this 0:00:11.320 --> 0:00:15.160 interview that reporter Adam Lowenstein did with journalist and author 0:00:15.360 --> 0:00:18.759 Malcolm Harris. You may have come across Harris's work in 0:00:18.800 --> 0:00:23.279 New York Magazine or his book Palo Alto. I particularly 0:00:23.400 --> 0:00:27.520 enjoyed his take on the Abundance Bros. Recently in The Baffler. 0:00:28.240 --> 0:00:31.080 Harris has a new book out now called What's Left 0:00:31.360 --> 0:00:35.159 that tackles how we can save both democracy and the planet. 0:00:35.320 --> 0:00:37.960 It's a great read, and this conversation is a great 0:00:38.040 --> 0:00:52.800 listen enjoy. 0:00:53.520 --> 0:00:56.200 Thanks for being here, Malcolm, Yeah, thanks for having me. 0:00:57.200 --> 0:00:59.480 So I wanted to ask you to start. I have 0:00:59.560 --> 0:01:02.600 my own of this, but I'm curious what you see 0:01:02.600 --> 0:01:03.800 as the purpose of your book. 0:01:04.120 --> 0:01:06.399 Oh, I'll hear your theory, and I should hear it 0:01:06.400 --> 0:01:09.119 before I hear you hear my theories, and then you're 0:01:09.120 --> 0:01:11.920 going to copy me. When I set out to write 0:01:11.959 --> 0:01:14.440 this book, at first, I thought I'm going to worry 0:01:14.480 --> 0:01:17.640 about why I'm right and everyone else is wrong. Everyone 0:01:17.640 --> 0:01:20.199 who even sort of agrees with me is wrong, and 0:01:20.720 --> 0:01:23.080 they all need to completely agree to me. With me, 0:01:23.160 --> 0:01:25.760 and I have the only explanation for how we get 0:01:25.760 --> 0:01:29.399 through the climate crisis, and when people read my brilliant explanation, 0:01:29.640 --> 0:01:32.840 they'll have no choice but to agree with me in 0:01:32.880 --> 0:01:35.399 my understanding. And then I like thought about that for 0:01:35.440 --> 0:01:38.360 a second and thought like, well, that's that's not true, 0:01:38.440 --> 0:01:44.440 Like that won't happen. Even if I make a spectacular argument, 0:01:44.880 --> 0:01:47.680 I could convince you know, some people, but most people 0:01:47.720 --> 0:01:52.559 are probably doing what they're doing, even people on the left, 0:01:52.760 --> 0:01:55.560 as I'm broadly considering it, who don't agree with me 0:01:55.680 --> 0:01:58.360 on specifics or doing what they're doing for a number 0:01:58.360 --> 0:02:01.000 of reasons, not just because they're particular convinced, but because 0:02:01.000 --> 0:02:04.960 they have a like temperamental affinity with what they're doing. 0:02:05.120 --> 0:02:08.520 They have like interpersonal commitments, you know. People. We live 0:02:08.560 --> 0:02:11.040 in a society, you know, and I wasn't going to 0:02:11.360 --> 0:02:14.800 remake that society by making an argument, And so I 0:02:14.840 --> 0:02:18.760 decided the most useful thing I could do was operating 0:02:18.880 --> 0:02:24.120 from some base of shared understanding, give a sort of 0:02:24.160 --> 0:02:28.600 showcase of what I think are the relevant ideological paths 0:02:28.800 --> 0:02:31.000 that the left has opened to it right now. And 0:02:31.000 --> 0:02:33.320 this is mostly you know, like I wrote this during 0:02:33.320 --> 0:02:37.760 the Biden administration, and so we had some left wing 0:02:37.840 --> 0:02:41.679 people within some proximity to power for some period of 0:02:41.760 --> 0:02:45.079 time who were working on economic policy, and so from 0:02:45.160 --> 0:02:48.519 that the left wing of the Biden economic team all 0:02:48.600 --> 0:02:52.440 the way to insurgent communists. I think there was a 0:02:52.480 --> 0:02:56.400 certain level of agreement about some important terms, such that 0:02:56.960 --> 0:03:00.320 we could have a conversation about what everyone believes and 0:03:00.360 --> 0:03:03.200 then how we fit together. And so this book was 0:03:03.360 --> 0:03:07.160 my attempt to sort of give the strongest presentation I 0:03:07.280 --> 0:03:10.640 could of these different paths, even if even if I 0:03:10.639 --> 0:03:14.200 don't agree with everything in there, both strengths and weaknesses, 0:03:14.400 --> 0:03:16.560 and then think about the whole field in a way 0:03:16.639 --> 0:03:21.320 that's holistic and realistic. But you, as a reader, what 0:03:21.360 --> 0:03:23.400 was your take? That's more interesting to me? 0:03:24.160 --> 0:03:26.280 I will say on the you know, having written it 0:03:26.560 --> 0:03:29.720 during the Biden era, but of course readers are consuming 0:03:29.720 --> 0:03:32.400 it in the second Trump era. The mentions of Lena 0:03:32.480 --> 0:03:36.800 Khan made me somewhat wistful and nostalgic for a time 0:03:36.800 --> 0:03:38.960 that feels very far away, even though it was not 0:03:39.080 --> 0:03:41.880 that long ago. So what it felt like to me 0:03:42.080 --> 0:03:45.840 was that it was essentially a bracing bucket of cold water, 0:03:46.120 --> 0:03:48.680 which itself will be kind of a valuable commodity in 0:03:48.720 --> 0:03:53.120 the not too distant future. Like, there's no benefit to 0:03:53.600 --> 0:03:56.280 pretending that the problem is not as bad as it 0:03:56.360 --> 0:03:58.720 is and that the crisis is not as acute and 0:03:58.800 --> 0:04:02.640 real and world spanning as it is. We'll get into 0:04:02.640 --> 0:04:04.600 this a little bit later, I'm sure, but there is 0:04:04.640 --> 0:04:07.680 a sense of inertia the way that capitalism works that 0:04:07.720 --> 0:04:09.640 all of us, including those of us on the left, 0:04:10.240 --> 0:04:12.560 can get very comfortable with that. What it felt like 0:04:12.600 --> 0:04:16.039 to me was you repeatedly reminding people that it's as 0:04:16.040 --> 0:04:20.080 bad as you think, probably worse, and there is. We 0:04:20.120 --> 0:04:23.240 don't do ourselves any favors by avoiding the discomfort of 0:04:23.279 --> 0:04:23.960 that reality. 0:04:25.040 --> 0:04:27.880 Yeah, that's just true. Right. So if we're talking about 0:04:27.880 --> 0:04:32.360 like foundation, I'm against deluding ourselves. I'm interested to see 0:04:32.400 --> 0:04:36.400 how much people will focus on different like think about 0:04:36.440 --> 0:04:39.440 it as an optimistic or pessimistic book or whatever, or 0:04:39.640 --> 0:04:43.160 hopeful or hopeless, And I try not to work within 0:04:43.200 --> 0:04:46.640 those boundaries. Usually I feel like they're not they don't 0:04:46.640 --> 0:04:49.560 guide us in the right directions because try to be 0:04:49.560 --> 0:04:53.560 a very dialectical thinker. Right, So there's hope even in 0:04:53.800 --> 0:04:57.120 the most hopeless moments, and then there's despair even in 0:04:57.160 --> 0:05:00.640 our best strategies. But yeah, I don't think there is 0:05:00.640 --> 0:05:03.400 any point. I think that's a premise for the project, 0:05:03.560 --> 0:05:05.920 is that there's no point scouting ourselves and that I'm 0:05:05.960 --> 0:05:10.839 not going to lie to my readers about what I 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:13.560 understand the situation to be. And the situation is it's 0:05:13.560 --> 0:05:17.039 pretty dire, but we can also you know, people have 0:05:17.080 --> 0:05:19.520 been in dire situations for a long time. It's not 0:05:19.560 --> 0:05:21.279 We're not the first people to see the end of 0:05:21.320 --> 0:05:24.560 the world, and we can learn from other experiences with that. 0:05:24.880 --> 0:05:27.960 So for me, it's a it's a forward looking book, 0:05:28.240 --> 0:05:31.640 not a not a backward looking book or a you know, 0:05:32.040 --> 0:05:35.240 skyward despairing looking book. It's a forward looking book. I'm 0:05:35.279 --> 0:05:38.640 thinking about where we are, where you go, and to 0:05:38.720 --> 0:05:40.560 go anywhere, you have to start from where you are. 0:05:40.600 --> 0:05:43.479 You can't imagine you're somewhere else. It's not a path 0:05:43.520 --> 0:05:44.000 for movement. 0:05:44.520 --> 0:05:46.960 Yeah, you say early on that the message to me 0:05:47.000 --> 0:05:49.240 at least was it's worse than you think. But you 0:05:49.279 --> 0:05:52.279 also write pretty early in the book that I'll assume 0:05:52.320 --> 0:05:55.520 from the beginning that success is possible, which is right. 0:05:55.560 --> 0:05:58.440 It's both very pessimistic and very optimistic at the same time, 0:05:58.480 --> 0:05:59.960 which I guess maybe is just a way of describing 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:02.200 being realism in some ways. 0:06:02.320 --> 0:06:05.520 Well, I think that the I cite the great late 0:06:05.560 --> 0:06:07.880 and great Mike Davis who says, well, we have to 0:06:07.920 --> 0:06:10.839 be realistic even about our realism, that you can look 0:06:10.880 --> 0:06:15.920 at the situation ecologically and turn to stone is what 0:06:15.960 --> 0:06:18.520 he says is like it is, it's very bad, and 0:06:18.600 --> 0:06:21.400 you can look look at the situation and see how 0:06:21.400 --> 0:06:25.240 bad it is and freeze. There's there's a real temptation 0:06:25.400 --> 0:06:28.520 to do that, and there's a temptation to ignore it right, 0:06:28.600 --> 0:06:32.040 to just not look. But I think realistic about our 0:06:32.080 --> 0:06:34.960 realism is to find a middle in between those and say, like, 0:06:35.480 --> 0:06:38.840 the situation's bad and we can still move. We are 0:06:38.839 --> 0:06:41.640 not Stone, right. We have the ability to think and 0:06:41.720 --> 0:06:43.159 we have the ability to act, and we can do 0:06:43.240 --> 0:06:44.080 both collectively. 0:06:45.200 --> 0:06:48.240 So in understanding the status quo, the stakes of the 0:06:48.240 --> 0:06:50.640 present moment or the state of the present moment, I 0:06:50.640 --> 0:06:53.880 guess you talk about the oil value life chain. Can 0:06:53.920 --> 0:06:56.680 you explain what that is as kind of a fundamental 0:06:56.680 --> 0:06:58.880 premise for where we are right now? 0:06:59.240 --> 0:07:03.240 Yeah, Actually, the concept for this book is really this 0:07:03.360 --> 0:07:08.320 oil is life syllogism which I awoke from a dream 0:07:08.360 --> 0:07:10.239 with I was like in to pitch a whole different book, 0:07:10.280 --> 0:07:12.280 And the night before the conversation with my agent, I 0:07:12.320 --> 0:07:14.640 woke up for a dream with this phrase, the oil 0:07:14.720 --> 0:07:15.240 is life. 0:07:16.600 --> 0:07:18.280 Fossil fuels are they're in your brain? 0:07:18.600 --> 0:07:21.760 Well they are in so many ways microplastics alone. 0:07:22.080 --> 0:07:24.160 Yeah, that's a good point literally in another. 0:07:23.920 --> 0:07:26.960 Way, literally like oil is life. So we know the 0:07:27.000 --> 0:07:31.920 phrase the water is life from the code access struggle, 0:07:32.600 --> 0:07:35.480 and that's true. Right, everyone knows that you can't literally 0:07:35.520 --> 0:07:38.239 can't live without water. We know that, and that should 0:07:38.240 --> 0:07:41.320 be decisive, right, that should, like everything should flow from 0:07:41.360 --> 0:07:46.520 that fundamental truth if we are operating rationally, one would think. 0:07:47.080 --> 0:07:50.400 And yet the assertion, the phrase, the truism of truth 0:07:50.720 --> 0:07:53.760 that water is life has not shifted our politics, It 0:07:53.800 --> 0:07:58.320 has not shifted our state behavior, It hasn't affected the 0:07:58.360 --> 0:08:01.280 path we're on that much, except in this insurgent way. 0:08:01.840 --> 0:08:03.680 And so the question is why there has to be 0:08:03.760 --> 0:08:08.080 something truer than at least in our society. Water is life. 0:08:08.680 --> 0:08:10.320 And the more you think about it, or the more 0:08:10.360 --> 0:08:13.320 I thought about it, once I had this phrase, whatever 0:08:13.600 --> 0:08:17.400 wouldn't leave me alone? It's true that oil is people's lives. 0:08:17.400 --> 0:08:21.080 People's lives are tied up very very very literally in 0:08:21.120 --> 0:08:23.800 the fossil fuel system, and not just the gas that 0:08:23.840 --> 0:08:26.280 they put in their car, although certainly the gas that 0:08:26.320 --> 0:08:29.520 they put in the car, or the polyester clothes that 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:33.719 they used to put on their children, but also you know, 0:08:34.120 --> 0:08:37.560 the dividends from the Exxon check that is going into 0:08:37.559 --> 0:08:40.440 their pension fund. You know that people's lives are really 0:08:40.480 --> 0:08:42.640 really tied up in these systems, and not just in 0:08:42.679 --> 0:08:45.839 their need for consumable energy that can be replaced with 0:08:45.880 --> 0:08:49.360 a solar panel. And until we're realistic about that, unless 0:08:49.400 --> 0:08:52.960 we acknowledge that, we can't change it. And that's to 0:08:53.080 --> 0:09:00.000 me explains why every group, every agency, every state, every commune, 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:03.800 unity that has tried to address this imminent crisis is 0:09:04.600 --> 0:09:08.400 currently a lapsing crisis of climate change has found itself 0:09:08.600 --> 0:09:11.240 really totally unable to do it, not at the scale 0:09:11.400 --> 0:09:14.600 is necessary. Even when we talk about and I'd write 0:09:14.600 --> 0:09:16.200 in the book, and when we think about China, which 0:09:16.240 --> 0:09:19.080 is as a state maybe done the most to address 0:09:20.080 --> 0:09:24.160 the exigencies of climate change at scale, it's not there. 0:09:25.120 --> 0:09:28.600 It's not a reasonable reaction to what's happening in the world. 0:09:28.640 --> 0:09:32.680 Were not able to do that. And it's because oil 0:09:32.960 --> 0:09:37.160 makes our life for everyone in the world almost that 0:09:37.240 --> 0:09:40.440 we face this block. And you need value as that 0:09:40.520 --> 0:09:44.640 center term to explain why it's not just oil itself 0:09:44.720 --> 0:09:47.920 that shapes our lives, but the fact that oil is 0:09:48.040 --> 0:09:53.920 valuable and valuable is the structure that explains and organizes 0:09:54.360 --> 0:09:57.439 the entire social metabolism. Means neither of these things are 0:09:57.760 --> 0:10:00.720 easy to cut off from each other. Right, It's not 0:10:00.760 --> 0:10:03.920 that we just use so much oil in our household production. 0:10:04.120 --> 0:10:07.600 We don't necessarily even for like it's heating and driving 0:10:07.720 --> 0:10:11.040 is mostly what people use fossil fuels directly for. I 0:10:11.040 --> 0:10:13.960 mean some cooking too. But it's not like you can 0:10:14.040 --> 0:10:16.680 get an ev and get an induction stove and the 0:10:16.679 --> 0:10:19.640 whole problem is solved. It is a problem at the 0:10:19.760 --> 0:10:23.600 level of value. And as long as fossil fuels have value, 0:10:23.840 --> 0:10:26.360 which they do because you can use them to accomplish 0:10:26.360 --> 0:10:29.600 a whole number of things, And as long as value 0:10:29.800 --> 0:10:34.400 is the term that structures our whole world, we're going 0:10:34.440 --> 0:10:38.880 to find ourselves unable to control our social situation, to 0:10:38.920 --> 0:10:41.880 control our ecological situation. I'm able to control what I 0:10:42.000 --> 0:10:43.800 call our social metabolism. 0:10:44.200 --> 0:10:46.880 I think one of the main points that I took 0:10:46.880 --> 0:10:49.520 from this, or I found clarifying about this, was the 0:10:49.600 --> 0:10:54.160 idea that our entire society is structured around the idea 0:10:54.200 --> 0:10:58.760 of value for value sake or value production for value 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:01.200 production sake is an Inherit aren't good on its own. 0:11:01.320 --> 0:11:04.040 That's the kind of the basis for this whole system 0:11:04.080 --> 0:11:06.040 we live in. And as long as that's the case 0:11:06.600 --> 0:11:10.080 and oil is valuable, then that chain will be unbroken. 0:11:10.240 --> 0:11:12.080 Is that a reasonable interpretation. 0:11:12.840 --> 0:11:16.640 Yeah, And we can see the implications very simply. And 0:11:16.679 --> 0:11:18.760 I start with the story of going to the Shell 0:11:18.840 --> 0:11:21.080 conference where they wanted me to speak and talking to 0:11:21.240 --> 0:11:26.040 this engineer slash finance guy for a Shell who's explaining that, well, 0:11:26.080 --> 0:11:28.840 when we stop using a well because of climate pressure 0:11:28.960 --> 0:11:32.480 or whatever, we sell it to somebody else and they're 0:11:32.520 --> 0:11:34.480 going to use it, and so the oil in that 0:11:34.520 --> 0:11:36.720 whale is still going to get used, even though we're 0:11:36.760 --> 0:11:40.400 complying with our climate commitments or whatever. We'll just sell 0:11:40.440 --> 0:11:43.120 it to some gangster, like literally, just like some gangster 0:11:43.200 --> 0:11:46.600 who can operate it at a lower cost because they're 0:11:46.720 --> 0:11:50.640 evading the safety responsibilities that have been foisted upon shell. 0:11:50.960 --> 0:11:53.480 They're avoiding the labor responsibilities they have been foisted upon 0:11:53.520 --> 0:11:56.920 shell because that oil is valuable, Like you could still 0:11:57.040 --> 0:11:59.120 use that, and it's like, well, if you get replaced. 0:11:59.520 --> 0:12:04.480 You know, two hundred million gas powered internal combustion engine 0:12:04.640 --> 0:12:08.280 personal vehicles in the United States. With electric vehicles, those 0:12:08.280 --> 0:12:11.760 cars don't just disappear. They're going to be sold somewhere 0:12:11.760 --> 0:12:14.320 where they don't have as many cars because suddenly you 0:12:14.360 --> 0:12:17.079 can get a car for way cheaper. And then those 0:12:17.160 --> 0:12:20.120 cars are still they need to be powered with gasoline. 0:12:20.520 --> 0:12:23.000 That's still going to power the car that someone will 0:12:23.000 --> 0:12:26.800 find money in being able to supply. That person who's 0:12:26.840 --> 0:12:30.160 able to sell the gasoline for that car is going 0:12:30.200 --> 0:12:32.719 to be able to live, right, They're going to be 0:12:32.720 --> 0:12:34.959 able to reproduce their lives. Maybe they're going to be 0:12:35.000 --> 0:12:37.520 able to improve their lives and the lives of people 0:12:37.559 --> 0:12:40.160 around them and their loved ones. And I'm not going 0:12:40.200 --> 0:12:41.640 to be able to convince them not to do that. 0:12:41.760 --> 0:12:43.160 You're not going to be able to convince them not 0:12:43.200 --> 0:12:45.400 to do that. State regulations aren't going to be able 0:12:45.400 --> 0:12:46.920 to convince them not to do that. You know, I 0:12:46.960 --> 0:12:50.360 compared it to the War on drugs. There's theoretically a 0:12:50.440 --> 0:12:55.040 war between every government in the world, and like drug 0:12:55.080 --> 0:12:58.120 dealers and drug dealers are winning that war and have 0:12:58.200 --> 0:13:00.840 been winning that war for decades. And it's not because 0:13:00.880 --> 0:13:04.720 they have bigger armies or whatever. It's because there's drugs 0:13:04.760 --> 0:13:08.360 are valuable, and value is the way that we find 0:13:08.400 --> 0:13:09.920 our way to life. 0:13:10.559 --> 0:13:14.880 So you organize this book around three collective strategies, as 0:13:14.880 --> 0:13:17.280 you call them, and I actually don't want to spend 0:13:17.720 --> 0:13:20.240 a ton of time on each one of them, because 0:13:20.280 --> 0:13:21.959 that's what the book is for, and there's so much 0:13:22.000 --> 0:13:24.280 nuance in each of these that people should just go 0:13:24.559 --> 0:13:26.800 read the book for that. But just as a little 0:13:26.800 --> 0:13:29.120 bit of scene setting, can you just give a bit 0:13:29.160 --> 0:13:33.240 of an overview of what the three different strategies are 0:13:33.720 --> 0:13:34.880 that you outline in the book. 0:13:35.000 --> 0:13:39.199 Yeah, I describe them as and I use the strategies 0:13:39.240 --> 0:13:41.960 as the names and the organizing principle rather than like 0:13:42.120 --> 0:13:47.680 identity ideology thing. So not socialism in the middle term, 0:13:47.760 --> 0:13:50.520 it's public power. I describe it as public power because 0:13:50.520 --> 0:13:54.600 I want to keep focused on the strategies themselves rather 0:13:54.679 --> 0:13:59.200 than these kind of political identifications or identities. So the strategies, 0:13:59.200 --> 0:14:02.600 as I describe them our market craft, which is using 0:14:03.040 --> 0:14:08.200 the states to intervene to break the connection between fossil fuels, 0:14:08.280 --> 0:14:11.800 oil and value by building a clean energy economy and 0:14:11.840 --> 0:14:14.960 by regulating fossil fuels out of existence. And so I 0:14:15.080 --> 0:14:18.360 call that market craft. It's a term designed by the 0:14:18.400 --> 0:14:22.560 political scientist Stephen Vogel that I really like. But it's 0:14:22.560 --> 0:14:26.680 a pretty broad spectrum of policies even within this chapter. 0:14:27.160 --> 0:14:29.760 The second one is called public power, which people might 0:14:30.120 --> 0:14:35.200 understand as like democratic socialism or just socialism, which is 0:14:35.200 --> 0:14:40.119 where the state is actually doing the green transition itself. 0:14:40.240 --> 0:14:43.720 It's loosening both the connections between value and life and 0:14:43.760 --> 0:14:46.520 between fossil fuels and value by building a clean energy 0:14:46.560 --> 0:14:50.360 economy and providing a basic quality of life for all 0:14:50.360 --> 0:14:53.760 people independent of their relation to the value system, such 0:14:53.840 --> 0:14:56.400 that fossil fuel can't make the same demand on us 0:14:56.520 --> 0:14:58.920 that they make now for us to ruin our lives 0:14:59.000 --> 0:15:03.320 and ruin the collective life life. And that'sized through organized 0:15:03.360 --> 0:15:08.119 labor developing itself in the interests of the entire society 0:15:08.200 --> 0:15:10.440 and taking control in that collective interest. 0:15:10.760 --> 0:15:12.960 And we saw some of those first and second, the 0:15:13.000 --> 0:15:16.800 market craft and public power strategies during the Biden years. 0:15:17.160 --> 0:15:20.000 Yeah, yeah, you could point to examples for sure, more 0:15:20.040 --> 0:15:22.920 market craft than public power. I think you can definitely 0:15:23.040 --> 0:15:26.040 definitely point to examples. And then the third one is 0:15:26.160 --> 0:15:29.440 what I call communism, which is breaking that connection between 0:15:29.600 --> 0:15:35.320 value and life and organizing life itself around different principles, 0:15:35.680 --> 0:15:39.480 specifically to each according to their needs, from each according 0:15:39.480 --> 0:15:43.080 to their abilities, rather than according to their ability to 0:15:43.120 --> 0:15:44.120 produce value. 0:15:44.400 --> 0:15:47.080 And you talk in the book about choosing the word 0:15:47.280 --> 0:15:50.680 or settling on the word communism rather than something more 0:15:50.720 --> 0:15:54.280 complicated that might have this not have the same political baggage. 0:15:54.440 --> 0:15:57.560 I guess, yeah, I'm not scared of the word communism, 0:15:57.760 --> 0:16:01.840 and maybe I should be, and I would be now 0:16:01.840 --> 0:16:04.320 more if I read it again now. But for me, 0:16:04.760 --> 0:16:07.760 I think having an honest relationship with my readers is 0:16:07.800 --> 0:16:11.240 really important that I'm never going to try and dumb 0:16:11.280 --> 0:16:15.400 things down. I'm never going to try and like handle 0:16:15.480 --> 0:16:19.400 my reader strategically in that way with regard to the 0:16:19.440 --> 0:16:21.080 truth or what I think. I'm not going to give 0:16:21.120 --> 0:16:23.680 the reader or anything less than what I think. And 0:16:24.120 --> 0:16:27.320 that's a pretty pretty firm commitment from me as a writer, 0:16:27.680 --> 0:16:30.480 which becomes difficult in these kind of situations where I'm 0:16:30.520 --> 0:16:33.480 taking something that's pretty I don't want to say theoretically dense, 0:16:33.520 --> 0:16:37.480 but definitely fraud that's very important for my thought, and 0:16:37.520 --> 0:16:39.200 then I have to find a way to share it 0:16:39.200 --> 0:16:42.320 with a broad audience. And the best way I've found 0:16:42.360 --> 0:16:45.120 to do that is pretty straight up, and sometimes I 0:16:45.160 --> 0:16:47.120 need a note to explain to the reader, like, look, 0:16:47.160 --> 0:16:49.960 this is what I'm doing. I trust you to trust 0:16:50.000 --> 0:16:52.880 me to get us where we're going, and not need 0:16:52.960 --> 0:16:57.040 just call it like communism or like communalism or whatever 0:16:57.200 --> 0:17:01.240 something else. If I'm talking about to each according to 0:17:01.280 --> 0:17:04.560 their needs, from each according to their abilities, I'm talking 0:17:04.600 --> 0:17:07.520 about communism Like I'm a Marxist. I'm not afraid of that. 0:17:07.800 --> 0:17:10.159 I think society should be less afraid of that, and 0:17:10.200 --> 0:17:12.639 it's my duty to make society less afraid of that. 0:17:12.720 --> 0:17:15.560 In some ways, so I trust, I trust my readers, 0:17:15.880 --> 0:17:18.960 maybe to my own detriment or downfall, but I can't 0:17:18.960 --> 0:17:19.560 help myself. 0:17:20.000 --> 0:17:22.639 I feel like it's just a good operating principle for 0:17:22.680 --> 0:17:24.399 a writer and just for a human being in the 0:17:24.400 --> 0:17:26.879 world of just to trust people, give them the benefit 0:17:26.880 --> 0:17:27.320 of the doubt. 0:17:27.720 --> 0:17:31.080 I think so, but I find a lot of writers 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:35.280 don't feel the same way necessarily. A phenomenon I see 0:17:35.320 --> 0:17:38.960 a lot is writers trying to write down to their 0:17:39.000 --> 0:17:44.040 reader from a place that's not very high to start with. Yeah, 0:17:44.080 --> 0:17:46.879 and so people who are assuming they're like, you know, 0:17:47.720 --> 0:17:52.680 too clever, too informed for their broad readership, and they're 0:17:52.680 --> 0:17:56.760 taking something that's already not first rate and diluting it 0:17:56.840 --> 0:17:59.720 down further to the point where like the readership can't 0:17:59.720 --> 0:18:02.320 really get anything out of it, and there's there's just 0:18:02.440 --> 0:18:05.760 not much there. And so I'd rather like look straight 0:18:05.760 --> 0:18:08.879 across the table at my reader, because that's where I 0:18:08.920 --> 0:18:11.240 that's where I will always think they are right. I'm 0:18:11.280 --> 0:18:16.720 always writing for curious, thoughtful readers the best I can. 0:18:17.200 --> 0:18:20.600 Unless we get diverted into the conversation just about the 0:18:20.600 --> 0:18:22.639 writing process, which I would love to have but is 0:18:22.640 --> 0:18:24.960 probably not what people signed up for. I do have 0:18:25.040 --> 0:18:27.760 a note written on a sticky note tape to my 0:18:27.840 --> 0:18:30.199 monitor here that says, respect your reader, trust them to 0:18:30.240 --> 0:18:32.200 get it, don't hit them over the head with it. 0:18:32.320 --> 0:18:34.560 And I don't always succeed in that. I probably usually don't, 0:18:34.600 --> 0:18:38.040 but I at least try to remind myself that people 0:18:38.080 --> 0:18:38.520 are smart. 0:18:38.640 --> 0:18:40.760 I've had a lot of luck, I've had a lot 0:18:40.760 --> 0:18:43.879 of luck respecting my reader and respecting readers in general. 0:18:44.000 --> 0:18:45.560 And I think there are there are a lot of 0:18:45.560 --> 0:18:48.080 smart readers out there, way more than people think there are, 0:18:48.280 --> 0:18:49.960 way more than a lot of writers think there are. 0:18:50.480 --> 0:18:53.000 So coming back to the book, there is an interesting 0:18:53.520 --> 0:18:58.120 theme throughout, which is this idea of class conflict. And 0:18:58.480 --> 0:19:00.679 there's a lot of points in each of the three strategies, 0:19:00.680 --> 0:19:03.800 and then the book more broadly where you make the 0:19:03.840 --> 0:19:07.720 point that whatever you think or have convinced yourself that 0:19:07.760 --> 0:19:13.960 this fight taking on climate change is about at its core, 0:19:14.160 --> 0:19:19.320 any sort of realistic, long term solution involves class conflict. 0:19:20.119 --> 0:19:23.280 Can you explain a little bit about why that is? 0:19:23.320 --> 0:19:25.439 Because I feel like, especially a lot of us on 0:19:25.480 --> 0:19:28.879 the left, or maybe more of the like liberal progressive 0:19:28.920 --> 0:19:31.879 left rather than the capital l left we've been taught 0:19:32.280 --> 0:19:35.879 and we're still very hesitant to say the class word. 0:19:36.160 --> 0:19:38.879 Yeah, I think you have to go to the mode 0:19:38.920 --> 0:19:42.159 of production because capitalism is a mode of production, and 0:19:42.200 --> 0:19:43.960 you have to look at what are the conditions and 0:19:44.040 --> 0:19:46.560 relations of that mode of production. And that's what we 0:19:46.640 --> 0:19:49.920 do as Marxists, is we look at the capitalist mode 0:19:49.920 --> 0:19:52.639 of production, which is the mode of production we live 0:19:52.720 --> 0:19:55.800 under it's the most motive production nee mode of production. Right, 0:19:55.840 --> 0:20:00.359 it's the archetype for all other understandings of motive production. 0:20:00.640 --> 0:20:03.800 And we look at are what are its relations? Right? Well, 0:20:03.800 --> 0:20:06.280 we see a relation between a capitalist class and a 0:20:06.320 --> 0:20:09.840 working class. There's a class that produces value and there's 0:20:09.840 --> 0:20:13.960 a class that receives that value. It's a funny inversion, right, 0:20:13.960 --> 0:20:16.639 because the capitalist class creates the work and the working 0:20:16.640 --> 0:20:21.639 class creates the capital. That's at a little Mario Trante 0:20:21.720 --> 0:20:25.159 for our p our warning, and so that that is 0:20:25.200 --> 0:20:29.440 the basis for this production system, production for production's sake, 0:20:29.880 --> 0:20:33.199 that organizes our entire global society, and that which we 0:20:33.320 --> 0:20:37.720 find ourselves unable to control. So it's ultimately a relationship 0:20:37.760 --> 0:20:41.480 that we're unable to control. It's not the machines themselves, right, 0:20:42.000 --> 0:20:45.879 we can't fetishize the objects that are produced by the 0:20:45.920 --> 0:20:50.320 system of production. It's this relationship that we're unable to control. 0:20:50.400 --> 0:20:53.359 And that's true for emissions, right, That's true just at 0:20:53.400 --> 0:20:56.480 the very like basic level. It's that it's not like 0:20:56.800 --> 0:21:01.280 the machines are dragging us into this situation or whatever. 0:21:01.440 --> 0:21:05.280 It's our social relation and on our individual social relations. 0:21:05.640 --> 0:21:08.639 But the social relations at the class level, which is 0:21:08.640 --> 0:21:12.399 what enables production in the first place, and so without 0:21:12.440 --> 0:21:15.760 disturbing that, and I don't necessarily claim that you have 0:21:15.840 --> 0:21:19.280 to abolish it in order to have a path through, right, 0:21:19.320 --> 0:21:22.280 that's what I think. I'm an anti capitalist. I think 0:21:22.280 --> 0:21:25.800 we need to abolish capitalism, but from a market craft perspective, 0:21:26.520 --> 0:21:29.639 you can change the way that capitalism works, and I 0:21:29.640 --> 0:21:32.919 think it's worth acknowledging that and trying to understand that 0:21:33.000 --> 0:21:35.880 perspective as well. But to do that, do you still 0:21:35.880 --> 0:21:39.480 have to understand the class relation as an obstacle to 0:21:39.600 --> 0:21:43.239 any sort of control over the social metabolism. And so 0:21:43.320 --> 0:21:46.560 whether you have to like absolutely destroy capitalist production or 0:21:46.560 --> 0:21:50.240 not is a question that this book leaves open because 0:21:50.240 --> 0:21:53.639 I think it's a question that's on the left. But 0:21:53.720 --> 0:21:56.639 if the premise is that the oil value life chain 0:21:57.119 --> 0:22:00.679 is wrapped around the gate to positive future and we 0:22:00.760 --> 0:22:03.199 need to find some way to break it or to 0:22:03.280 --> 0:22:06.720