elizabeth cohen and christina nash or a warm. welcome to the three of you to the washington history seminar in fact to so liz and christina i'd say welcome back great to have you back to the washing history seminar. i'm christian osterman. i direct the wilson center's history and public policy program and i have the pleasure to co-chair the seminar series with eric arneson of the national. enter and george washington university today eric will introduce our speakers and moderate the discussion. the washing history seminar is a collaborative effort of two organizations the national history center of the american historical association and the wilson centers history and public policy program. for well more than a decade. the seminar has served as a non-partisan forum to discuss important new historical findings insights and publications something that's central to the mission of both of our organizations. behind the scenes fair two individuals who helped produce this event rachel wheatley for the national history center and pete biersticker for the wilson center our thanks to both of them. we'd like to acknowledge our supporters and we welcome your support details on how to support this seminar which both of organizations are basically doing pro bono details on how to support a seminar are available now in the chat or simply go to our institutional websites. finally please join us next week for a session on mary barton's book counterterrorism between the wars. a couple of technical notes before i turn the zoom room over to eric. today's session will be recorded and will soon appear on our respective organizations websites. for the q&a part of this webinar we we have two ways of joining the discussion. we ask you and that's a preferred way to use the raise hand function in the zoom functionality if you'd like to ask a question, once you press the button you will be entered into a queue. when the moderator calls on you you will receive a prompt and that will ask you to unmute your screen, please press yes, or you won't be able to talk you can start getting in line even before the end of the discussion period you can also use the q&a function in the zoom functionality and post your comment or question and then eric will put it to our speakers. please do not do not use the chat function to communicate your questions or comments. and with that i'll turn it over to eric looking very much forward to this discussion here today eric over to you. thank you christian. it is my pleasure this afternoon to introduce our principal speaker. gary gerstel the melon professor of american history emeritus and the melon director of research at the university of cambridge. he is the author editor of more than 10 books including two prize winners american crucible race the nation in the 20th century published in 2001 revised and expanded in 2017 and liberty and coercion the paradox of american government from the founding to the present published in 2015 his influential co-edited collection of essays the rise and fall of the new deal order 1930 to 1980 published in 1989 is still in print. gary gerstel is a guardian columnist and is also written for the atlantic monthly the new statesman descent and the nation amongst other outlets. he frequently appears on bbc radio 4 bbc world service talking politics and npr. he received his phd from harvard university and his ba from brown university and today he will be speaking on his newest book the rise and fall of the neoliberal order america and the world in the free market era published by oxford university press i believe just over a week or so ago and with that gary welcome to the washington history seminar again. the zoom screen is yours. thank you very much, eric. everyone can hear me. loud and clear i want to thank the washington history center and the and the wilson center for this opportunity. i want to thank eric and christian in particular and the behind the scenes logistics people for handling this and so effective a manner. and i also want to thank liz and christina for taking time to read the book and and offer. me and you their comments the book is new. it was only published last tuesday. so just a week out my assumption is that most of you have not read this book and that informs the comments. i'm going to give today because i need to give you a sense of what the book is about. i'm not going to do much with the narrative or particular events. i think it's more important to for me to give you a sense of the kind of interventions that i hope the book will make and debates about recent. american history at one level. this is a narrative history of the last 90 years from the perspective of national politics. two chapters at the beginning briefly recapitulate the rise and fall of the new deal order from the 1930s to the 1970s and then six chapters. tell the story of the rise and fall of the neoliberal order. from the 1970s to the 20 teens up until the present day. i was still writing the end of the final chapter in january. that's three months ago. the book really goes through the first year of the biden administration. as to whether it's advisable for historian. to come up so close to the present. that's another matter which we may want to take up later. during discussion at another level the book seeks to make a series of interventions in the interpretation of recent american history and it is on these interventions that i want to focus my comments i want to highlight three interventions in particular. first substitutes a focus on political orders for a focus on two four and six year election cycles in the writing of american political history. secondly, it's substitutes neoliberalism for conservatism as the better term. not the perfect term but the better term for talking about the era of free markets. in american politics and political economy from the 1980s to the 2010s. and finally, it stresses international politics more than domestic politics. for understanding the transition of neoliberalism. from political movement to political order in the 1990s and i want to take my time to illustrate and make comments. on each of the interventions that my book seeks to make the phrase political order is meant to connote a constellation of ideologies policies and constituencies? that shape american politics in ways that endure beyond the two four and six-year election cycles. in the last hundred years america, i argue has had two political orders the new deal order that arose in the 1930s and 40s. crested in the 1950s and 60s and fell in the 1970s. and the neoliberal order that arose in the 1970s and 80s crested in the 1990s and 2000s and fell in the 20 teams. at the heart of each of these political orders stood i argue a distinctive program of political economy. the new deal order was founded on the conviction that capitalism left to its own devices spelled economic disaster. it had to be managed by a strong central state. able to govern the economic system in the public interest. the neoliberal order by contrast was grounded in the belief that market forces had to be liberated from government regulatory controls. that were styming growth innovation and freedom. the architects of the neoliberal order set out in the 1980s and 1990s to dismantle everything that the new deal order had built across its 40-year span now the neoliberal order two, i would argue is being dismantled. establishing a political order demands far more than winning an election or two. it requires deep pocketed donors to invest in promising candidates over the long term. the establishment of think tanks and policy networks to turn political ideas into actionable programs. arising political party able to consistently win over multiple electoral constituencies a capacity to shape political opinion both at the highest levels like the supreme court and across popular print and broadcast media and a moral perspective able to inspire voters with visions of the good life. political orders in other words are complex projects that require advances over a broad front. they new ones do not arise very often. usually usually they appear when an older order founder is admitted economic crisis that then precipitates a governing crisis stagflation precipitated the fall of the new deal order in the 1970s the great recession of 2008-2009 triggered the fracturing of the deliberal order in the 2018s. the key attribute of a political order is the ability of its ideologically dominant party to bend the opposition party to its will bending of this sort comes to be perceived as necessary within the ranks of politicians competing for the top prizes in american politics the presidency and control of congress. thus the republican party of dwight d eisenhower acquies to the core principles of the new deal order in the 1950s and the democratic party of bill clinton accepted the central principles of the neoliberal order in the 1990s acceptance is never complete there are always points of tension and vulnerability in a polity as fissiparous as the american one and yet the success of a political order depends on its proficiency and shaping what broad majorities of elected officials and voters on both sides of departed partisan divide regardless, politically possible and desirable by the same token losing the capacity to exercise ideological hegemony signals a political orders decline in these moments of decline political ideas and programs formerly regarded as as radical heterodox or unworkable or dismissed as the product of the overheated imagination. of fringe groups on the right and left are able to move from the margins into the mainstream. this happened in the 1970s when the breakup of the new deal order allowed long scored neoliberal ideas for reorganizing the economy to take root. it happened again in the 2010s when the coming apart of the neoliberal order opened up space for trump style authoritarianism and bernie sanders style socialism. to flourish my second intervention has to do is an important one then the title of the book. and that is a substituting the term neoliberalism. for conservatism conservatism of course has long been the preferred term. to frame the political developments that are at the heart of my book. why then label the political order that dominated america in the late 20th century and early 21st centuries? a neoliberal one rather than a conservative one that choice deserves some explanation. conservatism in the classical sense signifies respect for tradition deference to existing institutions and the hierarchies that structure them. and suspicion of change one confined manifestations of these ideas in american politics across the second half of the 20th century most importantly in a widespread determination among white southerners to maintain racial privilege in the era of civil rights and among americans throughout the country who in the name of tradition. we're pushing back against liberation movements calling for equal rights for women and gays and for sexual freedom. other beliefs commonly associated with conservatism in america. however, do not fit comfortably under this political labor label a celebration of free market capitalism entrepreneurialism and economic risk-taking was central to republican party politics of the late 20th century yet. this politics was not about maintaining tradition or the institutions that but just to rather it was about disrupting traditions and upending institutions that stood in the way neoliberalism is a creed that calls solicitly for unleashing capitalism's power invoking this term allows us to shift the focus of political history and the last third of america's 20th century somewhat away from white southerners of from white southerners and family patriarchs resisting change to venture capitalists wall street modernizers and information technology pioneers seeking to push change forward that shift in emphasis. i argue is long overdue central to the politics of the clinton years were major legislative packages that fundamentally restructured america's information communication and financial systems and whose influence on 21st century political economy has been decisive. and yet those restructurings have attracted less attention than they deserve their significance hidden by the smoke generated by the decades fiery culture wars. those culture wars cannot ignored any more than the racial backlash against the civil rights movement can be slighted but it is time to bring the project of economic transformation more into focus to give it the kind of careful examination. it deserves and to our and to adjust our views of late 20th century america accordingly the focus on neoliberalism can help us do that. neoliberalism is a creed that prizes free trade and the free movement of capital goods and people it celebrates deregulation as an economic good that results when governments can no longer interfere with the operation of markets. it valorizes cosmopolitanism as a cultural achievement the product of open borders and the consequent voluntary mixing of large numbers of diverse people's at hales globalization as a win-win position that both enriches the west while bringing an unprecedented level of prosperity to the rest of the world these creedal principles deeply shaped american politics during the heyday of the neoliberal order. neoliberalism i argue sought to infuse political economy with the principles of classical liberalism. classical liberalism does discerned in markets extraordinary dynamism and possibilities for generating trade. well and a rising standard of living it sought to liberate markets from encumbrances monarchy materialism bureaucracy artificial borders and tariffs it sought in other words to release the economy from the heavy hand of the state and its various guises it wanted to allow people to move around and pursuit of self-interest and fortune to truck barter and trade as they saw fit. classical liberalism wanted to let individual talent rise or fall to its natural level that carried within it emancipatory even utopian hopes of people free in a world transformed. now my interpretation of neoliberalism is somewhat different than that of other scholars who deploy the term and i don't want to get into the weeds here. we can do that during the discussion if you wish. except to say this. one common interpretation is that neoliberalism is elite driven? it's a project by elites to contain an undermine and eviscerate. the democratic aspirations of the people this is definitely and there is definitely an important elite component. to neoliberalism that my book amply documents but i also argue that focusing simply on an elite model of neoliberalism. is not sufficient to account for this creed's popularity and its authority. neoliberalism in america was able to fasten on to the promise of america as a land of freedom individuality and reinvention. it was profoundly appealing to americans on high. an americans down low it was profoundly appealing i even argue. to those on the left for the new left as well as those on the right. thus if we discern and neoliberalism and elite component. we also must reckon with its popular component. ronald reagan told americans that freedom was their birthright. it was the reason the american revolution was fought it was the reason their nation. had come into being and many many americans believed him and invest it in that message. my third intervention has to do with the international dimension. of politics during the moment of transition when neoliberalism went from a political movement. to a political order and one event one international event loomed over all the others. and that was a fall of the soviet union. and more broadly the fall of communism. theodore draper once a communist and then a devout anti-communist and a writer on american politics in american history. once said that the 20th century was the communist century and i think he was right to do so and what he meant by that is that there no more important event. in the 20th century than the russian revolution of 1917. the threat posed by communism to capitalism was severe where communism established itself? capitalism was expelled. and the property of capitalists expropriated. the theory of totalitarianism which became dominant from the mid-30s to the mid-60s. said that wherever communism was successful in establishing itself. it could never be eliminated. its presence would be permanent. this theory turned out to be wrong. but what matters here is not whether it was right or wrong, but how intensely it was believed by american policymakers. and by american capitalists and the threat of communism both in the world in terms of removing markets from capitalist accessibility and also in america. when the labor movement was on the rise in the 1930s and 40s the fear of communism inclined capitalists to compromise with labor to avert the worst and in the book i talk about the grand compromise between capital and labor. that was the signal achievement of the new deal order. the labor movement was strongest. during the years of the cold war. the welfare state with all its limitations in america. reached its apogee when the cold war was at a tight. and this was also the era in which economic and economic inequality in america. reached its nader. once communism was gone the imperative the imperative to compromise. vanished once communism was gone capitalism could become global in a way. it had not been. since prior to the first world war this was the moment when neoliberalism went from political movement to political order my argument about communism is not a defense of communism. it was an indefensible system of tyranny. but saying that it was an indefensible system of tyranny does not excuse us from grappling with its historical role. across the 20th century and that's my third intervention. the neoliberal order crested and then cracked under george w bush my chapter on the bush years is called hubris. push and and his administration tried to apply neoliberal principles everywhere including intern including reconstructing iraq. and solving the problem of racial inequality in the united states. his actions led to the financial crash of 2008. 2009 explore expose the promise of globalization and neoliberalism for the fiction it was and triggered a decade of political turmoil. when the neoliberal order came apart. allowing two political figures utterly marginal and inconsequential in american politics in the 1990s. i'm thinking of donald trump and bernie sanders to become in the second decade of the 21st century. the most dynamic and convulsive figures in american politics thank you. thank you very much. a word to those in the audience about the question and answer as question christian pointed out at the beginning if you wish to participate and pose a question or brief comment you can do so by using the raised hand function that allows me to call on you and you get to answer ask the question or you can use the q&a function in zoom in which case i get to ask your question for you and with that let me introduce our first discussion this afternoon elizabeth cohen is the howard mumford jones professor of american studies and a harvard university distinguished service professor in harvard's history department. she's the author most recently of saving america's cities and log and the struggle to renew urban america in the suburban age published in 2019. which one the 2020 bancroft prize and back when we were in person. we did a session at the washington history seminar on the book previous publications include a consumers republic. the politics of mass consumption in post for america 2003 and making a new deal industrial workers in chicago 1919 to 1939 published in 1990 which won the bancroft prize in 91. she was dean of the radcliffe institute for advanced study at harvard from 2011 to 2018 and her phd is from university of california at berkeley and her a b from princeton and with that elizabeth great to have you back. the screens you very much eric and let me just start with congratulations to gary for an incredibly impressive book, and i'd like to just take a few minutes to start to say why i think so. the rise and fall the new neoliberal order delivers what has i would say become the gristle brand we can also see that see it in american crucible race and nation in the 20th century in liberty and coercion the paradox of american government from the founding to the present like these earlier books rise and fall of the liberal order is an ambitious reconceptualizing of a long period of us history based on a wide and insightful reading of mostly secondary sources so much so that gary's footnotes are a gold mine of historic storygraphy on a very broad range of issues. rise in foam or over is written with great boldness and argument of argumentation and clarity of prose neither of which are easy to accomplish. gary manages here as well to achieve something that i i know is not easy to achieve and that is combining his own distinctive analysis with the momentum of narrative so that the book tells a very good if sobering story well also presenting a long doorway conceptualization of a move in economic thought and political implementation from classical liberalism to the liberalism of the new deal order to the neoliberalism that took off in the 1970s and rained uncontested until fairly recently. most notably since the great recession and then under president trump's watch. despite many vestiges of neoliberalism that still remained today gary tells us that we seem to be on the cusp of something different that will speak to the ethno nationalism populism on both the right and the left antagonism to open borders for people and for goods and the deep racial divisions of white backlash and black lives matter. more specifically there are many places in gary's book where his overarching interrogation of liberalism in its various versions. sheds new light on old issues and i'm just going to name a couple that impressed me. the first is one that gary just mentioned in his overview of the book and that is that he argues that anti-communism and the cold war served to prolong the life of the new deal order. as republicans who might otherwise have focused more intensively on dismantling. it felt constrained by competition with the soviet union to preserve more of a social safety net. only after the cold war retreated could a neoliberal order take hold in both parties gary argues? i see this as a very helpful companion piece if you will to the cold war civil rights argument that some progress on civil rights was made in the face of communist condemnation and the american effort to recruit allies and markets in the decolonizing developing world. in the second thing. i'll point to although is that it although it's not new to proclaim that the iraqi war was a disaster gary treats the american reconstruction and occupation of iraq as a failed neoliberal project where the neoliberal playbook of such things as extensive privatization helped to do the effort and he persuasively compares that flawed undertaking to the occupation of japan after world war two where no such ambivalence about governmental authority undercut the effort. but i wouldn't be doing my job here today if i didn't raise some questions for gary so here goes the first one is that for me one of the most frustrating aspects of the neoliberal order and it's proponents is the contradiction between on the one hand a rejection of a strong hand of government in the economic realm whether express through deregulation privatization or refusal to play a mediator role between corporations and unions. and on the other hand, it's determination to use government power to limit people's personal freedom in their private lives whether legislating against abortion against equal rights for gays and trans people against a secular society with clear demarcations between church and state or against tolerant and inclusionary schooling. you acknowledge gary this morally intrusive aspect of neoliberalism and you label it a neil victorian moral code or moral traditionalism. but i don't find in the book much discussion of how neil liberals themselves reconciled these contradictory attitudes and actions towards individual freedom. so, can you tell us more how much for example is this inconsistent? inconsistency due to the power of religion in the us particularly evangelical christianity or else may explain it? my second question is the following one of the strengths of gary's book. is that people make this history? it is not just a genealogy of liberalism from its classical roots to its reinventions, but it's one where the ideas and actions of real people whether they're politicians or policymakers or agitators are responsible for these shifts, and hence. we are introduced for example to ronald reagan milton friedman bill clinton robert rubin, robert rice. mikal gorbachev and ernie and bernie sanders among many others. when i see less discussed in the central neoliberal sections more so than in the treatment of the new deal order or even the current populace turn away from neoliberalism is the popular base for this politics. how is it that large numbers of republican and then democratic voters supported the neoliberal order? here i would like to hear more about the impact of such things as one might be the stagnation in wages that may have encouraged ordinary americans to prioritize their interests as consumers over producers in surviving economically, so that low prices even on imported goods that were produced offshore appealed to them. or how the shift to the ira and 401k regimes of retirement benefits drew more and more americans into becoming investors to the point where today 56% of americans own stock. complicating their calculus of what was in their economic interest? put another way in this returns to a point you made in your comments to what extent and what ways was neoliberalism an elite project or a broader societal one and how did it exceed succeed electronically as it as one or the other and finally, i'd like to ask gary how much of this story is uniquely american. and how much was true of other western industrial countries? most of his book recounts the rise and fall of neoliberalism as based on factors closely linked to american politics the american economy and perhaps american distinctive cultural factors such as religiosity. but the uk had thatches neoliberalism and then brexit. france has had its own robust neoliberalism followed now by the rise of right-wing ethno nationalism and sanders like lightwing revolt also evident in yesterday's election and even scandinavian countries have backed away from their total from their social democratic commitments. meanwhile, germany despite its own history of neoliberalism has preserved the powers of unions and recently elected a social democratic chancellor. so can you say more about us distinctiveness and/or the transnational transnational influences on this history? so i'm going to stop there and just thank you gary for an incredibly enlightening book. thank you. elizabeth, gary. do you want to engage those questions? if you unmute first. i can i was expecting to hear from christina first you prefer i respond to them now or sure if that's okay. yeah. well, thank you liz for that excellent summary of the book and also for these penetrating questions on just thinking how i can. respond with a degree of economy that will take up too much time. so we have time for more general. conversation the first question how to how do i reconcile the free market aspects of the ideology with the willingness to intrude as much as the need of victorians have or at some point we're willing to do. into private life a part of the interesting exercise of looking into neoliberals or those who supported freeing market forces was the worries that they themselves had about whether ordinary people would be able to sustain themselves in conditions of a free market economy that they wouldn't give into excess. regarding debt sex the media gratification um, perhaps lose discipline at work. in other words they were alert to the problem of the problems that arose. when a a free market the power of free market economy was unleashed and at some level they were not sure that all individuals had the requisite discipline. the new deal had an answer for this which is you had a manage capitalism in in the public interest and you have to give people certain level of security and the neoliberals were unwilling to do any of that. and so they had to find alternative source of discipline. which they found in the family of a certain sort patriarchal. male breadwinner woman in the home raising the children heterosexual of course. no homosexuality in other words, they relied on the family to do the disciplining work and and to generate the right kind of citizens who could succeed in flourish in a market economy. but then the question arises what do you do when you see people failing to have these sorts of families or wanting different kinds of families? and that's when other measures. begin to become called for now you focused in your question mostly on the intrusion into alternative family life for. ways of living that people were preferring there's also of course the huge contradiction of america becoming a mass incarceration society. during the free market era. and the way i deal with this is to recognize a tendency that's present not just in neoliberalism, but in classical liberalism itself. that there are times when authorities state including state authorities might be called upon. to limit the freedom of certain groups of individuals so that a market economy can flourish in the appropriate. manner the with regard to african-americans the notorious and awful discourse of the underclass arises during the neoliberal era as a way of defining people and individuals. incapable of allegedly having the discipline necessary to flourish in a free market society and hence the justification for removing millions of people from the possibility of market exchange. that's one of the meanings of mass incarceration classical liberalism also had the tradition of what was called ordered liberty in order for liberty to flourish? it had to be ordered somehow and certain individuals were thought to be lacking in the order necessary certain racial groups, but also women and children and certain immigrant groups. so there had long been a tradition of of resorting to state action to bring the necessary order in order for market society to flourish. and this is a contradiction that goes that is deep and liberalism not just deep and neoliberalism. it is paradoxical you have to order society in order to free market society forces and it's very much present in the neoliberal era. and i don't and so it's a it's there are fascinating sets of paradoxes in this regard that i try and make sense of and and they emerge from the concern that liberals and neoliberals have that not all individuals. have the requisite discipline to flourish and market societies and they're not going to be nervous by the right kind of families this then becomes the justification. for the state to step in a much more could be said that. of course. the popular base of politics and that turn toward the the gop. i think you're right. i don't do enough on. the popular base with one exception and that is to involved in the new left and the story of neoliberalisms rise and this i expect to be a provocative somewhat controversial point and one that's going to be much debated. the in the 1960s what striking to me is how how similar at various moments are the critiques of? the over organized new deal society are coming both from the new left and the new right? that society has become too organized that it's become. too bureaucratized and that it suffocating to the human spirit. and in the hands of the new left, this becomes a rationale for liberation movements to free the individual to be him or herself and to free that individual from the way too powerful and way too oppressive. forces institutions in society and those institutions were not just capitalists they were capitalists, but they're also universities they were they were also an accessibly bureaucratic welfare state. they were also a new deal state and it become to regulatory and and to suffocating to the ability of individuals to be free. so this is the way in which ideologically neoliberalism comes to generate an appeal on the right and the left and it's and it has profound meeting in america because it's able to to connect to much older notions of freedom the frontier leaving the organized society in order to be yourself reinvent yourself. so i think this is one very important. popular base you raise a different rationale for the conversion of certain constituencies, and that is the the changing material conditions of the economy the spread of 401ks people getting pensions and and then being made responsible for managing those pensions. in the stock markets, this is part of a broader phenomenon of the financialization of american politics the rise of the finance industry to a position of power. and authority and also the capacity to generate an enormous amounts of revenue and profits. i mean the amount of income profit generated by the sector of the economy. becomes enormous and a lot of what they have to work with are the personal pensions of union members and and others who are now working with 401ks. and i i can't answer this question except to say that the involving many many more people in these sorts of finances may well begin to affect how they think about their own. politics and may well begin to affect. how they think about which party they will want to owe allegiance to and you can imagine that a certain appeal from republican party may begin to have effects on these people in that new way. and what you're suggesting in a way, is that the rationale for the reagan democrats? and the say the southern evangelicals going over the republican party lies not just in the race appeal that reagan offered in the republican party offered. but that there is another component the about the has to do with the changing circumstances of of of life for ordinary people i think to get at this most fully one group that we might want to bring into the conversation. much more deeply than we have until this time are small businesses and they're importance of in the american economy a perennial perennially understudy of the american population. certainly, very important politics certainly very important in the republican party and if we do developed a focus on that group and how small business begins to imagine itself in this financialized era of of the this new american economy we may get closer to the to the very important issue that i think you're raising one of the people doing very interesting work on. this is melinda cooper who recently published a piece and descent and i think we can look for more work from her on this matter. finally on is this a uniquely american phenomenon? the neoliberal ideas are our birth then in central europe and vienna for and for reasons that have to do with the crumbling austro-hungarian empire that quinn slobodian i think has written about very effectively. but after that the the motor for this transformation this ascent of these new political ideas are centered in the united kingdom and they are centered in the united states and there may be some way in which anglo-american conceptions of liberty prove conducive to the development and advance of this sort of neoliberal thinking and certainly the paired careers of thatcher. and reagan and clinton and blair are really really striking. the project of neoliberalism is always global. and eliminating communism from the world is a global project of of the first order. so when even though i'm focusing mostly on the united states to bring the story of communism. it's rise and fall into this necessarily makes this in international story the neoliberals themselves understand their project as a global one and and that in order for it to succeed. it has to it has to succeed and on an international level the story. i tell about clinton the democratic eisenhower. and margaret thatcher told a similar story of tony blair herself in that respect when she was once asked. and her later years after she was out of office what she considered to be her greatest accomplishment and her two-word answer was tony blair by which she meant she got tony blair to accept the principles and the neoliberal economy. so this is a global project. it's a it's a global vision and one has to bring to it in international perspective. and it goes it if the us and the uk are too cockpits for this it goes well beyond this it stretches. to latin america the eu has very strong neoliberal components and i'm not enough of an expert on germany and france to help us understand why neoliberalism sinks deeper roots in france than it does in germany. but maybe christina will shed some light on that question. i think we have to understand this as a global philosophy that's going to be worked out in ways that are analogous and yet different. in the various places in where this ideology penetrates, so we want to have a perspective that is on the one hand global but that on the other hand understands that every country has distinctive features to its politics so that when neoliberalism lands in that country it may well have a different set of configurations. thank you for those wonderful questions. and thank you for that response our second commentator this afternoon is christina spore professor of international history at the london school of economics and political science and a senior fellow at the henry a kissinger center for global affairs. it's ice johns hopkins university here in washington dc in 2018 to 2020. she was the inaugural helmet schmidt distinguished visiting professor at size a unique position made possible by the generosity of the german foreign ministry. and dad she is a specialist in the international history of germany since 1945 and is interested in questions of world order diplomacy and strategy and the practice of applied history. she's the author of a dozen books or edited volumes and her most recent monograph post-wall post-square rebuilding the world after 1918 published by william collins in 2019 in yale university, press in 2020 was first along with the german and spanish edition and the german edition won a prestigious award for the best political science book published in germany. i should also point out that recent book was a focus of a seminar for the washington industry seminar here online. she is now working on a global history of the arctic christina. welcome back. thank you eric for this very kind introduction and thank you both gary and liz for your wonderful presentations of the book, so i don't want to rehash too much about what has already been said and sort of enter really the conversation at this point and while picking out a few things that i found most compelling. i mean, i think it's a really wonderful finally written clear book was a very clear message was wonderful frameworks and you know, the definitions of what is meant by political order of what is meant by neoliberal and how it comes together and let me start first by what i find most compelling when it comes to and the american history and politics that this book is about before i move on to sort of the international plane, and i found it really striking and we think about of course we hear the word new liberal and you think about free trade economic movement freedom of movement of people of ideas. we think of digitization all these kind of things and i thought you brought it out very well again, also today gary and you know that it started out in some ways as a movement of ideas put forward by politicians in the 1970s. and of course you have to think about this i think in the context of you know, post-vietnam the detailed era the collapse of bretton wood something had to happen and of course on a broader scale, we had a major structural change we're moving from the period and you know of mass industry into more high-tech a change and in the in the industry's across the world, we've been dealing with north south conflict. and of course, we also are moving to sort of services industries plus and the rise, especially of the financial sector and i i remember the title of one edited book by neil ferguson was a shock of the global and helmuch also talked a lot about you know, this massive economic interdependence and how in some ways international politics is international development politics international economy, all these kind of things and in some ways, you know these ideas from the united states and as as a frontrunner in its own way when it comes to this more and less a fair open trade aspect and really the open markets and trying to get as many countries to join that as possible and then i thought it was very interesting and how you pointed out this paradox. how is this movement and ideas begins to be turned into politics under the reigning presidency and that in some ways we get this sort of two moral aspects emerging and that that ties a little bit back also to what we see in in the search iran. i talk a little bit about that later, you know, you say on the one hand and you know to control this this falls of the market forces, you know the reduction of the government, you know, the solidity in some ways is you know with the family this god religion these kind of traditional things on the one hand and on the other hand the emergence of you know, what later and the brexit campaign got called, you know, the people of the anywhere, you know the jet set this cosmopolitanism liberalism in that sort of sense of how people look at sexuality of of gender of color of all these kind of things and that we have to sort of two strands emerging at a time. although technically, of course that governments use itself as you know, republican more conservative in its sense and then as we move out of the cold what you're right into the post called what iran the clinton we see the sort of consolidation they're left and right almost find the sort of new consensus and you bring it out with the example and being rich and clinton and but of course we can also look at this, you know in a european context in a similar way where social democrats take on these ideas of you know, the more extreme forms of free market also entering in europe and in other other parts of the world, especially also because you know this this freedom of movement of capital markets and so forth. and so i think you know that opening out to global trade as the communist societies open to the markets and you know, we talk about the telecommunications i could talk about the world trade organization, and we could also mention you of course under the bush 41 presidency, you know nafta apec, you know different kinds of and free trade areas and all that sort of emerges gets institutionalized become sort of mainstream, but an interestingly and that i found also really compelling when i think of the last chapter for the first time has the first draft of history for trump and moving moving and then to biden this aspect. how on then on the fringes of something that started perhaps more on the right and then it becomes mainstream taken on by democrats and republicans and then under these strong men and they get on the fringes with you know, the bernie sanders all this one more on the left and further further on the right and you know, it gets sort of eaten away and i thought that was very interesting what actually brings about this fall what you call. and the neoliberal order especially in the us context. so all that for the american story and you know, i'm not in that sense a domestic american expert. i found that really compelling. i think it hangs very well together and it sense a very clear message how this could be read when we use this concept as an organizing force if you so want and i mean for me personally, i sort of thought. oh, i see, you know the name cork robin limbo and this business of what's happening and this this news, you know, how there's the rise of fox news the rise of cnn and all these sort of different things this privatization that had so much impact all just in the last couple of years and i experience america under the trump presidency under the lockdowns on the one hand of authoritarian tying it down and on the other hand black lives matter is big protests in washing all the while. the white house has rolled itself in this what to me seem like, you know, almost berlin wall kind of fence and as an opener to and what is also very striking on the cover of your book and that made me think once more about one of the smaller critiques. i want to raise and how this book and you know how i might might situated perhaps in the international context or raise other kinds of questions because it has the berlin wall at the very top and and the mexican border friends at the bottom and the last one for me makes completely sense in terms of that american story that you are telling you know, the fear now of immigration putting up these fences. these fences are also described at experienced in in the united states capital and but the fall of the berlin wall raises, of course this and this point where you write something back into the history that for example adam tools had written out this crashed. he said we don't need to think so much about the end of the cold war divide and we have to think of an era between the collapse of breton woods and the 2008 2009 crash and you say no actually if you want understand what you call the triumph of the neoliberal order actually, the collapse of communism is really important and you highlighted earlier again and this aspect that you know, the neoliberals or conservatives are ever we want to call them the reaganides they really wanted that project wanted to destroy communism and here like to to ask and raise a few questions and because i'm sort of thinking well, how how do we really need to understand? this this on the one hand the cold what you're about i would say. yes. absolutely. of course soviet experiment is a very important experiment and it's a modernization project. it's an ideological project, but i'm wondering is it the best way to to pit against each other the terms communism versus capitalism, which is quite nice. you have two seas, but isn't actually it's more complicated because it's the plan economy. the free market economy of different forms and one from it's a neoliberal, but of course model deutschland what time which drove in the 1970s and of course what also in part drove that european economic integration project is quite different from that. let's say fair american or even saturate model and on the other hand, you know if you think about the sort of political system the one party state on the one hand authoritarian and on the other hand liberal democracies again of different thoughts presidential democracy's parliamentary democracies, two party systems coalition and so forth. we have also different between america and and europe and that raises to me also the question whether this to talk about a neoliberal order as a order not just for the united states, but as you said what you want to claim that it has actually international impact whether up to fund is isn't quite an anglo-phone perspective in other words if we look together at reaganomics and reaganide project and such right project the saturism and other ism. there's of course many similarities and then we see emerged sort of insert. you know that third wave we had talked about in europe, you know under social democrats who took that on in the 1990s where they look at blair or gerhut as a transplant in germany and oh, you know, we look at then clinton and the united states where you know, that becomes sort of the mainstream taking on that sort of more less economic perspective into into the 1990s and however, i would you know, ask isn't it so that if you look at the developments in europe in the 70s and 80s the franco german tandem that drove the european union project. yes, that is free trade, but there's a very strong social charter as we see in the master retreat if it is, of course, the one thing written did not sign up on and actually there is in some ways also more sort of a state interference when it comes to welfare policies so that we look at you know, typically scandinavian states or that we look at nordic states at large and i'm thinking you're also for example, the current finnish government is also social democratic governments the current german government social democratic government, and the the germans call call it you know, these social market economy. it's not the same as new liberalism. and of course this was something that in the context of the collapse of the soviet union and the clubs are so with what i empire such i wanted to import eastern europe. she said shock therapy saturism. that's what you know, the eastern europeans should embrace and perhaps also something that you know the advisors from the united states in some ways, you know took as ideas shock therapy to eastern europe and and to russia and but of course these things need to settle over time and we have seen very different kind of economic models emerge also in that part of europe as it has in later joined the eu and although on the other hand. we have also seen, you know similar as no nationalist tendencies and rise of populism as you have seen the united states also some of these new democracies, but this leads me to another sort of wide up point if you sort of conceptualize and we think about the significance of this and of the cold war because you talk about the triumph of the neoliberal order. well, that's a european i would already for think the triumph to triumph on the one hand one can of course explain that to be doing and simply collapsed systemic problems the plan just the empire by imposition failed because actually those countries in divider empire did not want to be there and then we had a new soviet leader. it wasn't so much the triumph just of the united states and its ideas, but what the people in those parts of the world wanted and i think that that element of people power converted through electoral and revolutions into new types of governance brings me to the to in some ways the counter argument to yours if you're the sort of the politically economic model and triumph francis, fukuyama would say no it was universalization of democracy. it was the power of liberal democracy as the highest form of governance and that those two together perhaps need to be seen as two strands around this moment of transformation that brings about and then we could take a third explanatory term used by carl thomas and bottle brands, you know this unipolar moment if you think about it in terms of world order in other words it is that combination that you know, when the the people eastern europe they didn't just say hello. we want neoliberalism. no, they want to treat them of speech free elections that what their driving and we saw the combination of political and economic liberalization. and of course in the west one saw this something that for example in germany had been trying to test it and come out. well the prosperity story in the post 45 world. so my question is when we have fukuyama the end of history or if you want universalization of democratization your argument triumph of new liberalism unipolar moment, you know in which way should we be looking at this? what would you make of this and i would like to propose the following and i looked at it from quite, you know, a different perspective because i was interested in what happens actually to these tectonic shift i would call existing together. this is the post wall order. which is where you know, the people that have in some ways taking the reins into the hands they have taken on the democratization and then they're taking different forms of capitalism and then also in part because they join western institutions seek to consolidate those early young capitalist democracies. and yes, they do want the united states in but very much as an empire by invitation in that old cultural sense if you think about security and then on the other hand because it wasn't just simply i would argue that the triumph of the west although it looked like that because also the russians were saying yeah, let's have democracy. let's have capitalism because the chinese always took their different exit they stuck to authoritarianism to one party state, but they too open to the market. so yes, i would agree the international openness of the market the world trade organization to which the formerly close societies and and states open up that is be something that the americans were driving forward, but i don't think for example that clinton had, you know a great strategy i think evolved over time as he, you know, especially international affairs, you know started to prioritize different elements. and on the other hand and you know, we had particular developments in europe, which they're not necessarily entirely in line this united states because once september 11 happens america pushes also and bush 43 for regime change policy that to me has also quite a sort of forceful element from the top. he may be wanting to universalize all this new liberal aspect, but it's also quite forceful from the top and many europeans not want to go along with that and in some ways the european story is somewhat different story and i think that's why also now in the context of the current law, although we see a euro atlantic coming together. we also see how you know, europe takes particular. solutions inside the block and it's really and neoliberalism if neoliberalism has these elements of free market? is that really disappearing or is something very specific happening in the united states and up to a point is also quite exceptional because it's location and the way of course it maneuvers in the world, you know, it's really one if not the great power that projects power. that's what i would sort of like to put on the table. so just to frame it as two questions. how do you think in your view the new liberal order ties in businesses ideas of that film now moving into perhaps a multi multi-polar world, and how does it play with you know these questions of europe atlantic security cohesion in other words. how does the fall of the neoliberal or a tie in this on the other hand america is seen as empire by invitation because more countries for example want to join nato. christina thank you so much. gary well, there's a lot there. let me try and be brief and do justice to your questions christina so that we also have some time for others to come in and ask questions. i think there's a debate emerging now. well, there are multiple debates emerging but one of the debates that's emerging is it's what extent is the 1970s the critical transition point and to what extent is. 1989 to 1991 a critical transition point certainly the abandonment of bretton woods and the 1970s and a set of financial changes and transformations associated with that our very very important and adam2's. sees the 70s as defining and you're correct and saying that he diminishes the importance of the end of the cold war i just read a piece by steve cochin and foreign affairs who makes similar point and not in terms of not an atom two's terms of financialization, but more in terms of geopolitical shifts in the reemergence of what he calls ancient empires china. iran, and i guess he puts russia in that category sees it more as an ancient empire rather than as a failed. soviet experiment on the other hand fukiyamas on my side of this i have to claim them for me because the he writes in the end of history that with the passing of communism. which he locates with the end of the cold war the last universal alternative. to liberal democracy passes from the world and he considers that a decisive moment. that doesn't mean that there was no opposition to liberal democracy, but it was not universal. it would be islamic for example, or it would be it would be sexual it would it would appeal to a region in the world but not the entire world itself, but he considers the he sees liberal democracy as being universal and it's aspirations and he sees communism as being universal and its aspirations and once communism passed from the world. the last serious alternative to liberal capitalism and liberal democracy passed from the world as well now. i think democracy is is an element of neoliberalism as it was of liberalism when i write about and this is where i think my tying of neoliberalism to the broader history of liberalism is important. liberalism is an economic project. it is also a political project that has to do with rule of law. the sovereignty of the people over the territory they inhabits representative assemblies courts that can adjudicate disputes and have their decisions respected. so liberalism is not just political economy. it has a political component to it and i would say the same is true of neoliberalism. so i would not. i would not treat. neoliberalism and the surge for democracy in eastern europe is very different forces. i think they're they're bound up. together and but i also think that that once communism passes from the world. the ability for people to imagine a life. outside capitalism diminishes radically and that makes a difference in terms of how the left is going to constitute itself after 1989 and 1991. not just in. america but but in europe as well and and it's also the 1990s become become a period when the social democratic regimes of europe western europe and northern europe accommodate themselves much more to market principles than they had done. previously and so i do consider 89 to 91 to be decisive moment. also the the reconstitution of the left in the united states around identity politics has something to do with the loss of a dream of secular emancipation which was born with the french revolution and arguably died in 1989 to 1991. i think that moment is important that chinese soviet comparison is fascinating and we ought to be doing a lot more of that systematic comparison. i agree with you that there were internal. frustrations within the soviet empire both within its colonies and and within its own country, but it's not the path of declining empires to just to disassemble themselves in the way in which the soviet empire did historically these empires tend to hang on as long as they can. they the more common root is to do with the chinese did when democracy and the turn toward democracy and capitalism weren't working in tandem. they repressed democracy and embraced capitalism. i think we have to ask more whether that option was open to the soviet union at that point whether they might have had a chinese option. um in other words deciding against democracy choosing to preserve their empire rather than to set this disassembling it very anderson is one of the few people i've read has done a systematic comparison of those two communist empires says no that internally the structure of those societies was so different that helps us understand why china when its way and the soviet union when its way but i think we do have to ask the question whether the soviet union was destined to disappear in the period 1989 to 1991 and if we situate that empire in the broader history of empires, i think our answer to that be no it did not have to disappear at that moment. there were other alternatives available to it, and i don't think the people at the the people power of europe would have been strong enough have the soviet union decided to deploy its military muscle as it had in the past your last questions have to do with where we're moving now. i think i may hesitate to answer those just because that's gonna lead to another monologue and and i i'm inclined to a save some time for questions from the audience. but let me just say very briefly. about if we're moving away from a neoliberal order. are we? moving toward a multi-polar world i think the answer to that is quite possibly yes. i think we may be living through the end of pax americana which is dominated international politics for 50 years much as pax britannica dominated. the global world of the second half of the 19th century in the first years of the 20th century. we may be living through a similar. transition now and especially as globalization is in retreat opposition to free trade is mounting opposition to the free movement of people the free movement of capital the free movement of of information things that were essential to the neoliberal order during their their heyday, it seems to me that quite possibly what might come out of this moment of transition and of course russia's attack on ukraine is very much a part of this is a multi-polar world composed of several blocks the states being one block china being another russia being a third. you're being a fourth perhaps. then we have to deal also with south asia. as well and what's what's going to come out of that? i think one of the really interesting questions and i can't answer it. you're much better place to answer it than i am is. is whether this revival of the west that is going on now. in response to ukraine is going to lead to a reinvigoration of nato in the post-war alliance during its heyday. or whether and this is what i think your question was pushing me toward. whether there's going to be a divergence now between the united states and and europe that that the blocks that are emerging. will it won't be same kind of? european-american block that characterized nato during its heyday, but that there is going to be a growing divergence between europe and the united states and that that fits the model of the world moving toward multipolar configuration that's got to look quite different from either the cold war or the unipolar moment that the united states enjoy during its neoliberal hay day, so it's not really an answer to your question it but it asks us it's asking the right question. about the future and i think it's quite possible that the configuration of american and european relations in the next 20 years. we'll look very different. from the period of american european relations say from 1945 to through the 1980s thank you. we're now opening it up to the audience. we have a number of people with hands raised reeve houston has been waiting patiently reeve if you would unmute yourself, you may pose a question. hi, gary. thank you for your talk, really really fascinating and looking forward to reading it. i guess i'm not. of course. i have six six questions to ask and i'm going to try and keep it to one which is um you you seem to be building on david harvey in defining neoliberalism as a policy project, but one part of that if i if i remember harvey correctly was that it's a policy project in the in the service of reinvigorating, you know, getting a more sort of robust process of capital accumulation going and in my mind at least and maybe maybe harvey talks about this that involves a whole bunch of new. business strategies and and models for making money financialization being the you know that the the really big one, but i'm just wondering um a does your book or can you talk about or can you comment on the relationship between new business strategies new models for capital accumulation and the kinds of policy regimes we saw we have seen between reagan and clinton for example. and that's it. and i'm just going to weigh in for one second and use the heavy hand of the monitor to say we have lots of people with questions. so if we could keep questions and the responses on the more succinct side we can get to more people. the financialization is is and and the kind of capital accumulation. that is. generating is is a primary technique reeve for that. the the story i tell of the 1990s is the as a convergence of two politicians who hate each other gingrich and clinton around a common program of political economy. that one sees emerging through. the telecommunications reform bill that removes all virtually removes all public regulations from the telecom industry that then leads to the deregulation of wall street, and the exclusion of derivatives from all sorts of regulation in one one area after another the free market is is being installed by democrats. as much as by republicans and and it's also benefiting from the utopianism of the internet moment which peaks in the 1990s and a sense of a new industry with all kinds of wondrous possibilities and the emergence of silicon valley as a center for venture capitalism and the marriage of silicon valley and wall street under the auspices of the democratic party in the 1990s. that's all a central part of. the story that that i tell and that opens up possibilities for enormous cap enormous capital accumulation as does the continuing destruction of the labor improvement and the weakening of the labor movement to the point where the private sector labor movement it has in its ranks a smaller percentage of people than that had on the eve of the great depression, which we always thought of as a nator of organized labor in america. that would never be repeated so it's it's partly what business is doing to open up its possibilities for accumulation. and it's partly the the destruction of the forces that had been opposed to those levels of accumulation, which create all kinds of new possibilities for for growth capitalist enterprise and wealth leading to very deepening inequality which simply accelerates dramatically across the 1990s. thank you, dan. letwin a mute yourself and pose a brief question. all right. thank you so much for this really stimulating talk and i was particularly intrigued by your discussion of the competing meal populism of the left and the right it kind of rush into fill the vacuum left with the implosion of the neoliberal order. and so my question is i guess really an instrumental one. it's not the burden of a historian to provide guidance on how a research and left might optimize this prospects in america. but if you were to the asked what lessons my kind of the sanders style left take from your findings as it seeks to achieve what might be called the new social democratic order. thanks, dan. great to it's a great question. i document pretty fully the revival of the left in the 2010s. that's part of the story of the breakup of. neoliberal hegemony it opens up space that had not been there before and i consider. bernie sanders and i say so in the book to be the second most successful socialist and all of american history. he's living in our time second only to eugene victor debs, i also think that the a repro small between the center of the democratic party in the left of the democratic party has gone went further in the last five years. then at any time since the 1930s and 40s. i think part of one of biden's strengths and in this moment of weakness. it's important to remember he had some significant strengths one of his strengths was to i think grasp this as an inflection moment and that the politics of obama and clinton era could not simply be restored that one had to think in new ways. fresh ways with new ideas. fresh alliances and that included an opening to the left. of course most of the left project. as it was imagined. is now failing and i think that has to do with the razor thin margins with which the democrats are operating in, washington. and i think the progress has got a little ahead of themselves in terms of feeling their power the democratic party opened their arms to them, but the democratic party opened their arms to them more than the american people. open their arms to them and if the left is going to be successful as i think you would like it to be. it's gonna have to find a way of building a electoral constituency that is stronger than the one that it has now, which means moving beyond the coasts and big metropolitan cities. and recapturing something that was lost when the south abandoned. the democratic party, which is it had the south the democratic party in the sense had abandoned the south in order to forward the project of civil rights. it was necessary. but what the south gave the democrat democratic party electorally was a base in rural and small town america, which i would say. it has never successfully replaced and given the structure of american politics and the structure of the electoral college and the the weight of american politics toward rural areas small towns. i think some 30% of the population elects 70% of the senators. that's a reality of american politics. the the left is going to have to find a way to to to build itself in places where currently is not strong the labor movement might provide some of that but also the republicans understand much better than the democrats to the need to struggle at every level of american politics beginning with who's got a represent our voices on the local. pta the left would much rather. come here a lecture by an academic then. go to the pta and try and take it over in that respect. i think the republican party understands the the local the intense localism of american politics better than the left does and that's a lesson. i think that still to be learned. thank you melvin dubovsky if you would. on mute yourself. you can pose a brief question. welcome mel. gary it's been yes while since i've been anywhere with you and i haven't had the opportunity to read your book. but i wonder in thinking about your subject. did you pay any attention? to the work of giovanni a reedy on how capitalism has changed in the contemporary world and how he's looked at the changes in the soviet union and the prc. i think his work is really brilliant and i still remember the evening midnight in red square 1981 when he predicted. at the soviet communist party and the soviet union would be dead within 10 years. john i'm just wondering have you made any use of his work? i have not and but mel, it's great to hear from you after all these years and whenever i encounter you, i always learn something new. so you've you've taught me that i'm going to have to think about that. i read other people who are trying to contemplate the future of capitalism. like wilfred streak, and and i think the question is is very important and if a rigi did predict that in 1979. he was a he was almost the only one who did because what is remained to me about. the moment of the soviet union's collapses that almost no one and who i know who i was reading in the united states of europe. predicted it. it came as a tremendous tremendous shock. and part of what the book tries to recover is is the shocking nature of that moment, which is one reason why i accorded so much importance. as a turning point, but i will set myself to reading a rigi. and because i think part of the point of the book is to say that capitalism is a ceaselessly restless dynamic system. that is always reinvented itself and part of the limitation of some of the work on neoliberalism. is that it imagines. this as a permanent regime of capitalism. whereas i see it as a passing phase of capitalism. capitalism has reinvented itself many times and and will again in ways that have perhaps will have very little to do with the forms of neoliberal reason and politics that have dominated the last. 50 years thank you. we have time for one last question and barbara gubin will get in the last word if she unmute yourself and poses the question welcome barbara. we are waiting for the unmuting. all right, then. let's see if brett rini gets in the last word this time. sorry about that barbara. brett unmute, please. hello. question. yes. i didn't actually have a question. but but oh appreciate it there was a hand up for a long time then finally, michael hillard. michael okay, i just got the unmute button. yes. here's my question. is it valuable to and does the research support focusing specifically on the segments of capital in ascendants and decline at the time of neoliberal neoliberalisms rise and the specific roles these segments played in shaping the political project of neoliberalism specifically the client least in the us of industrial capital and the rise of mercantile and financial capital and with the lag tech capital. yes, absolutely. and one of the strengths of the rise and fall of the new deal order. was the way in which some of the contributors to that collection were able to get beyond generalizations about capital and understand which portions of capital were rising and which were falling. and the divisions in the ranks of capitalists themselves and why some capitalists groups and capitalists would choose to ally themselves with the new deal and other groups were steadfast opponents to it to the very bitter end. and i think that's an important. approach to to carry over into a study of the neoliberal order and i certainly highlight in in the book the you know that the troubled character of industrial capital and and the tremendous rise of finance capital and i also particularly highlight the the high-tech revolution of the 1990s and the invention of the new sector of business which is not which now has the largest corporations in the world, you know, well beyond the size of a general motors and the titans of and even retail giants the titans. of an earlier era and it's it speaks to the importance of divisions within capital and certain new vanguards of capital and pushing forward. new constellations of relationships between politics and the economy i also just want to say by way of conclusion that if we are moving into. a new political order or a period of disorder that will lead at some point. to a new political order. we it's incumbent upon us to look at divisions. once again in the ranks of capitalists and to imagine what new forces within capital may be rising and which falling and which sectors of capital were most instrumental in supporting trump that we know some of them but not all of them and which sectors of capital are most beholden to mcconnell and the other segment of the republican party. so i that kind of analysis i i haven't done but i think it's it's a project. that's very very important for students of the contemporary. political economy in america to undertake and i want to put in another plug for melinda cooper and her work because she's beginning to do some of this work and also imagining. trump as a proprietary rather than a corporate capitalist and we might also in a way fit the koch brothers under this umbrella and it may be that that part of the configuration of politics now has to do with the division between corporate proprietary capitalists, and it's it's worth pursuing that insight to see what implications that have for the political world that is being convulsed and transformed. as we speak thank you. i unfortunately have to draw this to a close. i think we could go on for at least another hour. we have another hand and i have i don't know 18 questions opened up on the q&a. but let me assure folks in the audience that we've only scratched the surface of this book as gary mentioned that the beginning it's also a narrative history of our times. so there's a lot more in its pages than what we've been able to touch upon today. and i think it would people would benefit from from engaging in its narrative and in its argument. i want to thank elizabeth, christina gary and christian for this session today along with those of you in the audience who have been with us since four o'clock and with that i turn this back to christian for the final words. thanks, eric every now and then i have these moments when i can't believe somebody is actually paying me a salary to do this tonight. i had one of those moments. thank you, gary elizabeth, christina, and of course eric for really truly learn it and amazing discussion. i enjoyed it. please join us next week for concert terrorism between divorce in the national history monday 4pm washing history seminar. ladies and gentlemen, please welcome david mammon.