Transcripts For RT Worlds Apart 20240714

Know the inclusive Political Institutions was able to kind of respond to the enormous increase in inequality and the political challenges that create is to the american constitution was written in the in the late 18th century James Madison and other people who formulated it they were worried about populism in the 17th eighties so i think populism is an old thing inequalities and old thing you know what we try to argue in the book is that you know these challenges of being met successfully in the past in inclusive societies like the United States but thats not to say that thats inevitable mr robinson you mentioned inequalities in all thing in the us i think you would also agree that its been exacerbated greatly by globalization and at least to some extent this wave of populism especially as represented by donald trump is a push against global as. Nation and the very specific set of facts it has an American Society now many in the United States believe that trump is a russian creature but regardless of russia suppose its all in those elections dont you think that those grievances with globalization would have materialized anyway for all his idiosyncrasies President Trump is able to capitalize on some of the problems which are being created by globalization i think thats absolutely right you know that people the politicians in the United States have not theyve not understood the you know the distress and dislocation thats being caused by globalization and you know and so so i think hes able to capitalize on the new the Democratic Party hasnt done enough to help a lot of its historic constituencies in the midwest who suffered as a consequence of globalization and you know that something has to be done about that you know i think the problem is the president doesnt really have effective policy for dealing with that you know his policy is to blame blame the chinese or blame the mexicans all that doesnt actually address the real problems that face people in the midwest in the United States really because hes policies seem to be quite decisive when it comes to china and other countries for example in germany which has benefited from globalization in his view unfairly so is trump really all about rhetoric because i mean from these pirate part of the world it seems that he is a vision as. Simplistic as it is it may seem at 1st to actually has a blear a pretty elaborated philosophy behind it i do think its a very coherent philosophy i mean its an emotional philosophy i think you know the front of the matter is that you know china china trade with china benefits people in the United States enormously so blocking trade with china is just going to drive up the prices. Goods that many of President Trumps constituents buy thats not going to make them better off and its not going to miraculously make the u. S. Steel industry come back or any of the other things you know so whats needed is a much more systematic attempt to invest in education and retraining and trying to find a kind of feasible employment i dont see those more targeted more realistic policies i dont think just you know driving up the price of chinese imports is going to help people quite the opposite actually so its a kind of emotional reaction its very much like populists in latin america you know populist in latin america like to blame the United States for everything and now were blaming the chinese i dont know who the chinese blame but but its not you know its rhetorical a very successful but its not really addressing the the real problems i also heard you call populism not only leaders but also anti pluralistic and an exclusionary strategy and i wonder if thats really the case because these people the proverbial deplorable how been excluded from the political debate for quite some time either really the ones who are excluding these socalled to leave because they leave still have the control over institutions over and the media over brokers see and so on i think you know when i when i talk about when i was talking about populism i sort of said those 2 elements of populism theres this you know theres this anti elitism and theres this sort of notion of the people you know that the real people should be deciding what happens but theyre not because of this elite capture of the system but i you know i 1st of all you know i you know i dont think the United States is you know were not its not colombia. Or peru or you know so i thought i wouldnt you know i wouldnt go too far to think that the elites have you know captured the system you know i think i still think theres a lot of problems with the u. S. Political institution. And Democratic Institutions but you know i think how the elite captured the system President Trump would never been elected in the 1st place but i would say the issues are less than they were historically in the United States you know if you go back a 100 years the issues of elite captcha of the day in the days of the robber barons all 150 years i would say were more severe than they are now and if you go back and look at what president roosevelt tried to do in the noisy thirtys for example completely undermine the autonomy of the Supreme Court President Trump hasnt done anything like that so lets get things you know lets get things in perspective my view is that you know President Trump you know he has a very strange chemistry a lot sure i completely understand it but he understood that there were grievances that the politicians were not dealing with so its up to the democratic and Republican Party to kind of reinvent themselves and think about how to address these grievances you know i think its the same in britain a lot of people say oh this referendum was such a disaster i dont think it was a disaster i think brets it is a disaster but i think the referendum showed that there were immense grievances in British Society that the politicians were not addressing and thats good they should be discussed and they should be addressed and thats a healthy thing for democracy i think many of those grievances whether it is in relation to back seat or in relation to donald trump they were economic in nature and they were related i gather to globalization and. I heard you say that theyre always incentives for individuals to make stuff more extract extract if if they can get away with it and youll often mention bill gates where says carlos slim as an example so how and nation state can encourage innovation while controlling the excesses in the era of globalization who can do that latter part of preventing big business from extracting too much because i think thats the argument of the back 50 years and dont know trump supporters. In making that that you need the nation state in order to control those multinational elite School Respond to no one i mean i think its true that the failures of regulation and i think that people dont really you know theres a very intense kind of debate and the economics profession going all the moment about whats the best way to regulate these industries and some says these industries are made enormous amounts of money by capturing information that you know that people didnt really understand they were providing all people didnt understand it was valuable and you know and so theyre getting it for free and then theyre selling it you know so so so so theres all sorts of issues about how you value information and how you control this and i think you know this is like technological innovation running ahead of humans ability to understand it and control it and regulate it and you know were all trying to catch up at the moment and you know and thats thats thats a process thats you know thats i think you see that many times in history you know you see it in the Industrial Revolution when the Industrial Revolution happened you know there was child labor that was all sorts of exploitation and we didnt have the institutions to control it and it took time it took time to catch up with that i think you know if you look at the history over the last couple of 100 years you know innovation has created many challenges like that and you know the optimistic view is that you know well be able to catch up catch up with it before it had a direct Inclusive Society ok well professor of and we have to take a short break now but well be back in just a few moments statement. To get up off the. Sounds kind of fighting into i mean a grown man like wrestling essentially in your office or hurling. Through his window. Which threw away from the office or the toys out of his crib. The obvious or did they kind of lunge for the weapon once missed and then when it happened on tree swung at the officers hands didnt hit him i never saw any contact between the 2 and the kind of went back to where they were so the officers back here there try again 15 feet apart at this point and thats when the officer pulled out his gun and aimed it on tree. So what weve got to do is identify the threats that we have its crazy confront a shouldnt let it be an arms race in this spirit Dramatic Development only. I dont see how that strategy will be successful very critical. To sit down and talk. Thats guys or financial survival guys like with those that you can. Really. Keep in mind though as a pleasure. To. Welcome back to worlds apart but James Robinson prominent political scientist and author all white nations failed professor robinson before the break we talked about nominally inclusive systems lets talk about extractive wants to reach you delegate both russia and china and i would agree with your main thesis is that collective societies often create the potential for client client to listen but they also come with higher demand on the state what the state is supposed to provide in terms of public goods is it really so binary inclusive versus extractive as opposed to being both inclusive and extractive at the same time i think theres a lot of agreement to most economists about what it takes to have Economic Prosperity you know it takes innovation that takes on a ship and you know for that people you know you need to have a set of economic institutions which can harness all the talent and ability in your society but all of you as you know you called the dictator or autocrat or some called me this polity. You know you need to have genuine political participation and accountability to guarantee those economic institutions and so i think you know you see many instances in World History of sort of transitory economic success. You know based on extractive economic institutions but it never lost you know you gave the example of the soviet union between the light and you know the kind of mid to late 1920 s. And 1000 the early 1970 s. You know that was a very successful experience of Economic Growth but very narrowly focused you know based on innovation and except in a few very specific spheres you know like military technology and you know china was trying there was in. That category too you know since the 1970 s. Theyve experienced rapid Economic Growth by making economic institutions much more inclusive than they were before so that part is fine but but they dont have the Political Institutions necessary to really sustain inclusive economic institutions and i you know i think to me if you look at history its very compelling the chinese case you know i mean whats been happening in china since the 1970 s. Is extremely familiar from chinese history going back 2000 years in china they always also late but was and forth between these 2 models you know wall model of kind of really micromanaging and Controlling Society and then a much more sort of relaxed model based on you know confucian principle and norms of Good Governance and you know thats what created Economic Prosperity in the past isnt to be pretty skeptical about chinas ability to say any of the growth rates primarily because of the communist partys control but that control seems to be very adaptive and when it comes to the high tech sector its much alas imposing in fact ive mad many chinese and even washington in tempering ours who say that they can grow their businesses in china Silicon Valley much faster than in america in the west coast. I wonder if you are on their ass to mading the adaptability of the chinese system i think you know the most the thing which is most telling about talking about is the what is it that most chinese or interpreters want to do with children their money that they want to get them out of the country. Because they have no faith in the they have no faith in the in the system of course they say that they have to say that because theyve been told to say that thats why they join the party why is jack more a member of the communist party because thats what you have to do survive in the system im not an advocate of the chinese system but if youre trying to be fair you can see that many institutions are in the United States or in the west more broadly are also not particularly inclusive if you take for Example School system china schools by and large are much better inclusive than american schools that especially private schools in some areas if you take the Public Health sector i would argue that russians have a much better access to public house by and large than the americans i mean when you talk about inclusiveness are there any specific sectors that aid the Economic Growth or are you claiming that it has to be across the board no i think i mean i think youre right you know theres many problems in the United States and i think theres always sort of gray areas you know talking about inclusive or extractive societies youre sort of taking an average you know and i think the if you look at the history of the United States there was a lot of kind of dirty deals done to create a you know whats on that whats kind of broadly an Inclusive Society you know black people that was a slave economy and if you go back to the time of the constitution there was a very dirty deal done to preserve the slave economy and since that collapsed in the civil war theres been enormous discrimination against minority communities against africanamericans and you know thats a drawback of the society and its a and its an impediment to what the United States. Could be but i the things havent undermines you know the general inclusiveness although some you know some people have much better opportunities than other thats for sure i mean i tend to think thats a kind of inevitable aspect of inclusion some level of inequality is inevitable and you know i would certainly say that Northern European countries about she does a much better job of dealing with those issues than the United States has but you know the United States had a much more difficult problem to solve historically you know you had this problem of solving you know how to create all 4 of the next you know create an institutional structure over this huge continent and you know that you know they solved the problem it was a difficult problem they sold it a lot better than latin american countries did but with lots of imperfections as youre pointing out i always say i often hear the same kind of argument from the russian officials and i want to ask you about russia now i find it somewhat ironic that the foreword for the russian edition of your book was banned by none other than on a 12 inch and wise. Person responsible for the profit privatisation of soviet properties which was carried out in a extremely extract if way benefiting only a very very limited group of people now mr tobias is also a strong proponent of institutions but he now argues that it is very very difficult to make western institutions work in russia as in tandem do you have sympathy for that kind of argument because he for one bad the fed from that campaign of privatization my interpretation of what went on in the 1990 s. Was you know it was a failed attempt to create a more Inclusive Society you know maybe it was a failed attempt because because the people who were running it you know were never really committed to actually creating you know an Inclusive Society and that of course includes westerners who you know who helped them rule so enrich themselves you know in the process. So i you know i dont know. Enough about it to know how well intentioned people people were heres the way i think about it you know. I think you know humans all over the world you know of very similar you know west the westerners did not invent democracy democracy everywhere in World History in india in china if you go far enough back you know Human Society historically going back is very egalitarian democracy and inclusion was created all over the world you know and it has a checkered history since then but its not a western invention ok how inclusive institutions actually look like in japan say is nothing what they look like in english england is nothing like sweden or the United States either so busy so i agree that creating inclusion in soviet union or after 990 was not a matter of adopting the u. S. Constitution it was a matter of finding what works in that cultural context but i do think you know the intuition about inclusion in this is the whole point of the language of inclusion and extractive institutions its meant to be flexible enough to apply to different cultural parts different parts the world with different histories and you know and so i think thats a struggle that the russians you know to build a sense of inclusion of institutions with which which resonates with them and this legitimate with the often mentioned centralization is a necessary component of Successful Development and i think this is something thats or its hereon or sammy authoritarian systems are pretty good at do you mean to say that the authoritarian legacy could actually be an advantage if it elaborate well well thats an interesting question thats you know thats like the question of how you term how you transition from extractive to inclusive Political Institutions i mean i do think that you know the experience in my experience in parts of the world you know which dont really have centralized political for a t. For example in Subsaharan Africa is terribly difficult to create if you dont. I have it you know and their son says africans have never had it but the problem is that you know once you have it centralized authority can be used to repress inclusion i think the real story of you know how places like you know western europe developed inclusive societies that is these things came together you know that that centralized authority was built gradually with with deeper inclusion political inclusion thats a sort of balance you know which i know much more about than russia is that you know if you think about china you know if you went back 2 and a half 1000 years china wouldnt look so different from europe for example but then this you know this very sort of autocratic model. Wins out you know with the change in the city in the start of the chinese do not stick history and not start that model has dominated Chinese Society ever since you know so we know that seems very likely to me to persist see some natural process of broadening inclusion or modernization like some academics like professor huntington a professor fukuyama would argue will george w. Bush thought that Economic Growth would just democratize china i think thats thats just not consistent with what weve seen from chinese history or the logic of how things work one prominent discourse in both russia and china is one about technology not only as a vehicle of growth but also as a vehicle of essentially collapsing. The power structure and making it more efficient for example here in russia you know once tronic taxation has been introduced the e. U. Can actually see very well who is abusing the state power for their own purposes or who is trying to use state institutions for richmond do you think there is anything to it seeing technology as a way of essentially making political power in these other private societies last personalised the more sort of technocratic and serving the benefit of society as a whole well i think that all depends on whos whos making decisions and how the state is governed i think technology on its own has no kind of implications for freedom or inclusion i would think you know if you think about the child whats happening in china at the moment with the construction of the social Credit System where theyre basically monitoring people penalizing them or rewarding them thats just sort of massive you know its Something Like George Orwells 19 eightyfour you know were all well wrote big brother is watching you know big brother didnt actually have the technological capacity to watch you but now. Does so i think thats thats likely to be to have horrific consequences for inclusion and just the quality of peoples lives so i dont think you can you could guarantee the technological improvements like that in a dictatorship would have some technocratic benefits i think it just it just facilitates the manipulation of society by by autocratic elites in my opinion but it lead to never so only that i mean its usually not the one group of people who are just enriching themselves its usually you know competing interests why abusing or using the state for their own benefit and i think its often the case that there are the literature of the Political Leadership of the country may not necessarily be interest that im sure secretary she or president putin are not making money out of being the leaders of that country at least not directly do you think that will give them better control of all of the all of the powers that be who are operating within the confines of a systems well i dont know about president putin the mill i dont really have any insight into what hes attempting to achieve obviously he has geo political agenda you know which involves you know an exceeding the crimea interfering in kind of super power politics you know in the middle east and the way the soviet union used to be i dont really understand what hes attempting to achieve with that or whether hes interested in material rewards you know we certainly know that the chinese elites in the communist party are benefiting staggeringly economically from corruption and you know extracting wealth from this process of Economic Growth that may not be whats motivating them either you know i think its very simplistic to think of individuals as just being motivated by material payoffs you know sure president putin has a project which has nothing to do with the question or understand what it is but im ready to believe that it has nothing to do with with money. But but it does have a lot to do with powell you know he seems to repress opponents the media you know he wants to stay in power. So you know im sure hes willing to do whatever it takes to stay in power and thats clear with the Chinese Communist party you know the thing that try these called this policy most care about is this ideology of political head gem in the competition or challenges you know thoughts and thats you know thats deep seated in they just inherited the mandate of heaven you know but now its called no its an old theme in chinese history its also very old argument on the part of the last of the young people in russia and china have. Capita basis have become a little bit 3 chair than they were lets say 10 or 15 years ago as opposed to people in the west who have become poorer m. P. s i fortunately are out of time to have that argument i have to leave it here and thank you for being with us today my pleasure i encourage our viewers to keep this conversation going in our social media pages and hope to see her again same place same time here on the walls apart. What politicians do you sometimes need. To put themselves on the line to get accepted or rejected. So when you want to be president. Or some want to. Have to go right to be cross the slightly before 3 in the morning cant be good that im interested always in the waters of my colleagues. First sitting. Seal will commute. Normal god holds. A memory a little know will show up at the open auditions your ocean cruise or. Give up on the board was to be with the one that. You would miss new york city but im still. Explaining to surround us you know some. Of the squad and some. Of these which. Dealt with the legacy of the local which is based on what. You own what one would do it seems lucas chess put out a little bit your bullshit a little. Lucas i wish you were that. Night or something. Thank you we had. 3540 years old. In the water. Some 30 fisherman later in this never. Understood. That he was going to move ahead of me i said and i thought my feet were stubborn and the machine. I believe that this is none of the therapy is. Absurd its really harsh things that happen in life. And. I was. I. Thought. The u. S. Ramps up the pressure on iran continuing to accuse the country of attacking oil tankers in the gulf of oman. Hong kong postpones a bill on extradition to china after a mass protest movement that is receiving support including from the u. S. And several commercials are canceled in britain after a watchdog rules that gender stereotypes are harming society. For the latest on the stories you can head to our 2 dot com stay with us for going underground discussing the joining us on the case and if youre watching in the u. K. 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