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France Is Only the Beginning: The End of the Western Empire | Richard Wolff — Transcript

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0:00is that we are living through
0:03the decline
0:05not just of the American Empire.
0:09That dominant role for the United
0:12States, which was usually dated to
0:15having begun in 1945.
0:20But we are also observing at the same
0:23time
0:25the more developed, the further along
0:28decline of empire, which we see
0:32engulfing Europe.
0:35Indeed,
0:37to lay it out
0:39we look at this more and more
0:42that the history of the world
0:45is the fading of feudalism in the 15th,
0:4916th century.
0:52The transition to capitalism begun in
0:55England.
0:57And that the historic task, if you like
1:01of the capitalist revolution and the
1:04capitalist replacement of feudalism and
1:08of whatever slavery was left
1:11ushered in
1:13a historic achievement for [snorts]
1:15capitalism.
1:17Not the one that people recognize, the
1:20development of technology
1:23which is definitely one of capitalism's
1:26achievements.
1:28But the creation of a genuine world
1:31economy a genuine world market, which
1:35had not had existed before.
1:39That Asia, Africa, Latin America were
1:42all brought in together
1:45with Europe, North America and so on.
1:49This creation of a world economy
1:52and this development of modern
1:54technology
1:56took place in the 17th, 18th, 19th, and
2:00into the 20th century.
2:04The problem
2:06which
2:07America is now facing and which Europe
2:10is further along in facing or perhaps
2:14better said not facing
2:18is that the era of the colonial
2:22project of capitalism
2:25the creation of a world economy, a world
2:28market
2:29is now
2:31exposed
2:34in the last 75 years
2:37as having been a great achievement
2:39that also exhibits
2:42a great flaw.
2:45And what is that flaw?
2:47The world economy that capitalism
2:50created
2:51is unsustainably
2:55unequal.
2:57It's if you like a parallel to saying
3:01the following
3:02that the technological development that
3:05capitalism achieved stunning and
3:09impressive as it is
3:12also
3:13had
3:15a horrific flaw.
3:18And it's called the degradation of the
3:21natural environment.
3:29>> Hey everyone, my name is Anthony Fantis
3:31and welcome to another episode of the
3:32What the Finance podcast. On this
3:34podcast I have the pleasure of welcoming
3:35back Professor Richard Wolff. So
3:36Professor Wolff, thanks so much for
3:37coming back on the podcast.
3:39>> Glad to be here Anthony.
3:41>> Yeah, looking forward to the
3:42conversation. We had a very good good uh
3:44chat about 3 to 4 months ago. It was one
3:46of our most popular interviews, so look
3:47forward to doing it again. Um and a
3:49lot's definitely happened since then and
3:51I'd be really interested in hearing what
3:52are you currently watching in in the
3:54economy and and around the world at the
3:56moment.
3:58>> Well, you know, here I am sitting in New
4:01York City, so I my perspective
4:04should be understood as coming from
4:07from here and engaged with what's
4:09happening here.
4:11Um, and I think
4:13if I ask myself how things have changed
4:16since you and I last spoke,
4:19I would say it's the following.
4:22Number one,
4:24the collapse
4:26of the support
4:28for President Trump. Uh
4:314 months ago, he was sitting
4:35in a pretty secure situation.
4:38True, a majority of Americans didn't
4:41much care for him,
4:43but that's probably been true most of
4:44the time.
4:46Uh, and he had weathered that opposition
4:50that was slowly getting stronger.
4:53But that opposition has gotten much,
4:55much stronger in the last three or four
4:58months.
4:59And his approval rate in the polls,
5:02uh, and the popular
5:04conversations that we all participate in
5:07here,
5:08have made him
5:10more and more the butt of jokes, and
5:13they're not friendly jokes, they are
5:15hostile jokes.
5:17So, he's in trouble.
5:19Politically, he's in trouble, and the
5:21movement that he rode into power is also
5:27fractured.
5:28Major supporters of his, like the
5:31journalist Tucker,
5:33uh, Carlson, or the
5:36representative Marjorie Taylor Greene,
5:39have now become leaders
5:42of the opposition to him.
5:45Leaders, not just spokespersons, but
5:48leaders.
5:50Uh we've elected
5:52uh Muslim socialist as the mayor of New
5:56York City,
5:57and I need to tell you, since I'm in New
6:00York City, that he is more popular now,
6:03a year after he was elected, than he was
6:07when he was elected, which tells you
6:10something, because to be a Muslim
6:13socialist in the United States, until
6:16very recently, would have been to have
6:18two adjectives attached to you, either
6:21one of which would have been tantamount
6:24to political suicide.
6:27So, that is an overwhelming
6:30phenomenon. It is widely expected
6:34that the elections that are due the
6:37first Tuesday of November, in other
6:39words, in a very short time,
6:43uh will mark a major defeat for Mr.
6:46Trump, for the MAGA base
6:49that he has relied on,
6:52unless he takes the enormous amount of
6:57money given to him by Elon Musk and
7:01other rich people
7:03and goes into the courts to literally
7:07block an election result by making
7:11everything contested, everything go
7:14through the court system,
7:16and everything arriving eventually at
7:19the Supreme Court, where is which is one
7:22of the few institutions
7:24where his people,
7:27that is, extreme right-wing people, have
7:30a functional 6-3 majority,
7:35and been able to get most of the
7:37decisions at that level that they want.
7:41Indeed, I would say over the last year
7:45the Supreme Court has given him a good
7:48bit of what compensation he needed for
7:52his defeat in the Congress that is
7:55becoming more and more alienated from
7:58him and from the judiciary, even from
8:01the judges he put into office
8:05who have turned against him because what
8:07he demands of them is so far-fetched.
8:11The second thing that weakens him and
8:14that dominates this country
8:17is the war in Iran
8:20and [clears throat]
8:21Israeli activities
8:24at first in the Gaza Strip, but now also
8:27in the West Bank.
8:31Because of the way our political system
8:33works,
8:35it has been possible
8:37for Israel and its supporters inside the
8:42United States
8:44to function as a block
8:47getting the money
8:49to be sent to Israel, the weapons to be
8:53sent to Israel,
8:55to allow the United States
8:58to enable
9:00Israel
9:02to be the military force [snorts]
9:06that it is in the Middle East.
9:10When
9:11in part because of that block
9:14Mr. Trump
9:16and the Israelis together, Mr.
9:18Netanyahu,
9:20have attacked Iran
9:23first in June of last year and then
9:26again since February of this year,
9:30it is now widely believed by the
9:34president's supporters as well as his
9:37opponents,
9:39that this
9:40effort
9:42is one of the greatest mistakes
9:45in American foreign policy in the
9:48[clears throat] history of the country.
9:52Foreign Affairs magazine, arguably the
9:56most important such a magazine in the
9:59United States for many, many years.
10:03In its latest article, in its latest
10:05issue, has a lead article which makes
10:08that statement, that this is the biggest
10:11mistake in American foreign policy in
10:14the history of the country. And we have
10:17other mistakes that are in our minds.
10:20Vietnam and Afghanistan among them.
10:25This mistake is
10:28remarkable because, for the first time,
10:32even looking at Vietnam and Afghanistan,
10:36the majority of Americans polled
10:39were against this war from the
10:41beginning. In those other wars, there
10:44was the patriotic support one usually
10:47has early on, and that only erodes as
10:52the war continues.
10:54Not the war in Iran.
10:56That war was opposed by the majority of
10:59Americans from [snorts] day one, and
11:02that opposition has only grown.
11:08Everything that the president is doing
11:11over the last three or four months that
11:13you and I since we spoke before
11:17has been devoted, whatever else it was
11:20shooting for, it has been devoted to
11:23trying to find some way to end the war
11:29in Iran.
11:32With the only qualifier to that remark
11:35being ending it without the president
11:38having to admit in these words
11:43the United States was defeated by the
11:48Iranian
11:49military.
11:52Why is that so crucial?
11:55Because the larger picture
11:57which is becoming clear slowly. I don't
12:01want to overstate things, but the larger
12:04picture
12:05emerging in the United States, which I
12:08think will become the dominant
12:11conceptual framework [snorts]
12:14for much of the rest of this century
12:17is that we are living through
12:20the decline
12:23not just of the American Empire.
12:27That dominant role for the United
12:30States, which was usually dated to
12:33having begun in 1945.
12:37But we are also observing at the same
12:40time
12:43the more developed, the further along
12:46decline of empire which we see engulfing
12:50Europe.
12:53Indeed,
12:54to lay it out
12:57we look at this more and more
13:00that the history of the world
13:02is the fading of feudalism
13:05in the 15th, 16th century
13:09the transition to capitalism begun in
13:13England.
13:14And that the historic task, if you like
13:18of the capitalist revolution
13:21and the capitalist replacement of
13:23feudalism and of whatever slavery was
13:27left
13:28ushered in
13:30a historic achievement for capitalism.
13:35Not the one that people recognize, the
13:37development of technology,
13:40which is definitely one of capitalism's
13:43achievements,
13:45but the creation of a genuine world
13:48economy, a genuine world market, which
13:53had not had existed before.
13:57That Asia, Africa, Latin America were
13:59all brought in together
14:03with Europe, North America, and so on.
14:07This creation of a world economy
14:10and this development of modern
14:12technology
14:14took place in the 17th, 18th, 19th, and
14:18into the 20th century.
14:21The problem
14:23which America is now facing and which
14:27Europe is further along in facing, or
14:31perhaps better said, not facing,
14:35is that the era of the colonial
14:39project of capitalism,
14:42the creation of a world economy, a world
14:45market,
14:47is now exposed
14:51in the last 75 years
14:54as having been a great achievement that
14:57also exhibits
14:59a great flaw.
15:02And what is that flaw?
15:04The world economy that capitalism
15:07created
15:09is unsustainably
15:12unequal.
15:15It's in if you like a parallel to saying
15:18the following, that the technological
15:21development that capitalism achieved,
15:25stunning and impressive as it is,
15:29also had a horrific flaw.
15:35And it's called the degradation of the
15:39natural environment.
15:43And those are the two negative legacies
15:47that are now being engaged
15:51or run away from. One more point.
15:55The tragedy for us
15:58that I believe will become clear to more
16:01and more people as the years go by
16:04is that the reaction
16:07of the unequal part of the world
16:11economy, the wealthy part,
16:13North America, Western Europe, and
16:16Japan,
16:1710% of the world's population
16:21serviced
16:23by the exploitation
16:25of the other 90%
16:27who were rendered poor
16:29relatively and even absolutely while the
16:33world economy created, first and
16:36foremost by the Europeans,
16:39rebounded to the wealth of the
16:41Europeans.
16:44That's over.
16:45We are now living in the era of
16:48anti-colonialism,
16:51of the rise of the global south.
16:54And the reaction of Europe is denial of
16:57what I just said. And the reaction here
17:00in the United States is denial of what I
17:03just said.
17:05But denial doesn't make it go away.
17:08That's why it's called denial.
17:12The end of the
17:14absurd wealth concentrated in Western
17:17Europe, North America, and Japan
17:20is what we are now living through.
17:25The end of the European empire
17:28happens with World Wars 1 and 2, the
17:30greatest mutual slaughter of human
17:33beings in our species history.
17:38It allows the United States to inherit
17:41all the other empires, all the other
17:44organizations of a global empire
17:47designed to be so unequal. Therefore,
17:49the United States becomes more wealthy
17:52than anything than the last 70 years.
17:55That's now over.
17:58And that is too difficult
18:01for the existing political situation
18:04to accept. So, they're trying
18:06everything,
18:08making one misjudgment and mistake after
18:12another because that's what happens when
18:15you're caught in a situation that you
18:18respond to by denial.
18:21That's why you're defeated in Iran.
18:25That's why the whole
18:26Middle East will never be the same
18:29because
18:31the the global South in its own
18:34complicated ways is rewriting where we
18:38go from here. I think that's what's
18:40going on and shaking everything because
18:44it is an epochal change.
18:48It's not just a change from European,
18:51American, and Japanese empires inherited
18:54by the American. That's a big change.
18:57But, it's now the end of the old empires
19:00compounded by the end of the inheriting
19:04empire as the world undoes
19:08that part
19:10of what history created to to create a
19:13much more diverse
19:15multi-level
19:17multi-polar
19:20global economy.
19:21>> Everyone, sorry for interrupting, but I
19:23just want to say thank you so much for
19:24listening and I hope you're getting
19:25amazing value out of this conversation.
19:27If you are, we'd really appreciate if
19:29you could like, share, and subscribe. It
19:30really helps the channel and means we
19:31can continue to get amazing guests like
19:33this one. Thanks again and let's get
19:35back to the show. Yeah, so so much to
19:36unpack there. Thank thanks for laying
19:37that out for us and I and I feel like
19:40what I've been listening to a few people
19:41talk about this and the last 20 to 30
19:43years has really been, you know,
19:45centrism, politics, trying to keep it
19:47all together despite these trends and
19:49they've and and they've obviously
19:51failed. Is is that how you've seen it?
19:53And then I feel like there was a reason
19:54>> Yes, and I for me you put it very well.
19:59The young people in the streets
20:02of Paris and of other French cities,
20:05the 500,000 people gathered in Madrid
20:09last Saturday,
20:11the the young people
20:13rising up in Albania. I mean,
20:17how many simple signals do we need? The
20:21fact that this relatively poor country,
20:26Iran with its 92 million people
20:30can say to the Americans,
20:33"We can match your drones. We can match
20:37your missiles.
20:39And we have your military bases as
20:43hostages.
20:44And we have the vulnerability of the
20:47world economy to the crucial item of
20:49oil, all your creations." Literally, the
20:53countries in the Middle East were
20:55created by British colonialism.
20:58And the development after that, American
21:01colo- We are confronting all of that and
21:05we're able to do it.
21:07And that's not just because we are
21:09strong, as I'm sure the Iranians would
21:12be the first to admit. It's because you
21:15are weak.
21:17India leaves the British Empire not only
21:20because they under Mahatma Gandhi become
21:23strong, but because England as a result
21:26of World Wars 1 and 2 was incredibly
21:30weakened. That combination is what is
21:34changing the way the
21:36the history of our planet is going to be
21:38written.
21:39And the only real danger
21:42is that the Europeans
21:44or the Americans
21:46caught in a denial
21:49they cannot excuse
21:52will take steps to kill us all.
21:55And by that I mean, of course,
21:59the use of nuclear weapons
22:02in the American case
22:04to deal with its defeat in the Middle
22:06East.
22:08And in the case of Europe to enact the
22:11final
22:13chapter
22:14of of a degree of Russophobia
22:19denial gone crazy
22:23that ought to have been a warning.
22:26Britain went through it, you know, a
22:28decade ago. It imagined that its
22:30problems had to do with Europe. So, it
22:33underwent Brexit. That was a colossal
22:3710-year detour that cost Britain deeply.
22:41[clears throat]
22:43Are you going to do it again? Is it now
22:45going to be not Europe that's the
22:47problem, just Russia that's the problem?
22:51Are you crazy? And the answer is And I
22:54By the way, this is understood across
22:57the political spectrum in the United
22:59States. The Europeans are looked upon as
23:03crazy
23:06in their Russophobia.
23:07Not that there aren't criticisms of
23:09Russia, of course. Russia has lots of
23:11problems. Mr. Putin has lots of
23:14problems, but he's not Stalin.
23:17And he's not fomenting
23:19a colonial attack on Western Europe.
23:22This is nutty.
23:24This is scapegoatism
23:26gone crazy.
23:29And I think
23:31more and more people are, as you put it,
23:35beginning to recognize
23:38this phenomena in each in their own way,
23:41from their own perspective and angle.
23:44It's an immense
23:47reality and therefore can be understood
23:50in all manner of ways, but the
23:53understanding is now being supplemented
23:56by mass political movement.
24:00And that's when it becomes clear that we
24:03are at a historical shift.
24:06Center politicians
24:09like Mr. Merz in Germany or Mr. Macron
24:13in France or your Mr. Verdon in England
24:17or Meloni in Italy or Trump and his
24:21likely Democratic opponent, these are
24:24all champions of a political option that
24:29is literally disappearing.
24:32>> Yeah, and I feel like the the West won't
24:34go down without a fight. So, things
24:37aren't working now,
24:39but this is going to lead to the
24:40extremes, probably both left and right.
24:43>> Yep.
24:43>> Far left, far right, probably in in
24:45different countries. So, imagine that's
24:47going to, you know, potentially increase
24:49the volatility or is going to try and be
24:50a focus of, you know, reviving these
24:53these countries and and and this empire.
24:56>> Well, you know,
24:57if I'm going to be very honest with you,
25:00uh I would say
25:03I would take what you just said another
25:05step.
25:07I think given the anti-communism
25:11uh that came out of World War II,
25:14the turning on the Soviet Union
25:17having been an ally in World War II into
25:20the greatest enemy the world could see,
25:24this was a very useful thing for the
25:26United States. It allowed the United
25:29States to inherit your empire and
25:31everybody else's
25:33to become the unipolar imperium
25:37of the last 75 years,
25:41but to cloak all of that not in the
25:44we're inheriting an empire, but rather
25:47we are bringing democracy to everybody.
25:50We are the great enemy of the great
25:53evil. What was that great evil? The
25:56Soviet Union over there and the
25:58Communist Party over here. And they were
26:02in cahoots with one another, they were
26:04the same thing, and we would fight them
26:07abroad, and we would fight them at home,
26:10and everything was couched in this
26:12language, which is still alive here and
26:15there in the world.
26:18And the Europeans have simply updated
26:20it. There's no more Soviet Union. Okay,
26:23you can't use anti-communism,
26:26but you can do the same game with
26:28somebody else. Rush Russia.
26:31No longer communist,
26:33anti-communist
26:35in everything it does, is plays the same
26:38role because you need that you need to
26:41cover
26:43because otherwise you'd have to admit
26:44what your real problem is, and they
26:48can't and they won't do that.
26:51And here comes my honesty.
26:55Given all the anti-communism, the
26:57anti-left,
26:59what the center did was give
27:04a chance for the reconstruction
27:07of the right.
27:10That's That's the dialectic they don't
27:12want to see, either.
27:15If you make your big struggle against
27:17the left,
27:19you are doing half of the job that is
27:23normally performed by the right.
27:26And, you're allowing them, the right, to
27:29concentrate on taking your votes away
27:32from you in the center, which current
27:35conditions enable them to do. Hence,
27:39the Alternative für Deutschland in
27:42Germany,
27:43the National Rally of uh Le Pen in
27:47France, and so on.
27:49That All of this means what? Yeah, we're
27:52going to turn to the right first.
27:56That's what happened in this country, in
27:58the United States. The Republican Party
28:01was captured by the right. They ejected
28:04all the centrists, the Bush family,
28:07people like that,
28:09and replaced them with Trump and people
28:12like that.
28:14But, they have no solution. Let me
28:17underscore this.
28:19The right will present itself as
28:22something better than the defunct,
28:25failed [snorts] center. And, they'll
28:27make that point, and they'll make it
28:29well, and they'll win a lot of votes.
28:32But, when you look at what they are
28:34saying they're going to do
28:38in relationship to the historic moment,
28:43then the inadequacy of their program
28:46is laughable.
28:48They have no program to solve their
28:51problems. The Germans don't, the French
28:54don't, the British don't, Trump doesn't.
28:58That's why Trump is in the trouble he's
29:01in. The right-wing accession to power
29:04hasn't worked.
29:07I'll give you just one example.
29:1120 years ago, we had
29:1415 to
29:1520 million manufacturing jobs in the
29:18United States.
29:20Today, we have 12 million jobs.
29:2510 or 15 years ago,
29:27our population was smaller than it is
29:29today. Our population grew and our
29:32number of of manufacturing jobs shrank.
29:37Mr. Trump promised to bring back
29:40manufacturing.
29:42He failed.
29:44By the way,
29:45eight or nine previous presidents
29:47likewise promised to bring manufacturing
29:51here and likewise they failed because
29:54none of them have a program
29:57for the decline of Western capitalism.
30:03And now to be even more honest with you,
30:05and here comes sadness on top of
30:08honesty,
30:09the left doesn't have that program
30:12either.
30:13I do predict, and I don't have
30:15confidence in prediction, but I do
30:17predict
30:19that the collapse of the center will at
30:21lead people to the right.
30:24But the failure of the right to solve
30:26the problem will then take that same
30:29population and then they will go to the
30:32left.
30:33In places like France, we may see that
30:36sooner than later, but that's always
30:39been France's role as it is today.
30:44And what do I mean? You've got to go to
30:46the root here now. We are not dealing
30:49with
30:50reforms with an adjustment here, an
30:52adjustment there.
30:54That's what these deniers,
30:57that's what they want. No change in the
31:00fundamentals.
31:02But that won't do.
31:03That I'm not going to solve the problem.
31:06It took three and a half centuries to
31:09build up the wealth of today's global
31:12economy.
31:14You're not going to have minor reforms
31:17cope with the recognition that both at
31:21the level of capitalism's technological
31:24achievements and at the level of his
31:27achievement of a world trade and a world
31:29economy,
31:31you can make minor adjustments. Uh-uh.
31:34You have to have a massively
31:38profound transformation.
31:42And if that comes from the left,
31:44that will in the end win.
31:47And if it comes from the right, same
31:50thing.
31:52So, the collapse of the center is an
31:54enormous danger
31:57and an enormous opportunity. And those
32:00two things always go together.
32:04>> And and what would that new or the what
32:05would the reform or revolutionised
32:07system need?
32:10>> Well,
32:11I'll give you the answer I offer.
32:14And that answer is to go to the root of
32:17the problem by which I mean the way we
32:21organize
32:22the production of goods and services.
32:26Food, clothing, shelter, the basic needs
32:29of human beings, transportation,
32:31education, health care, the associated
32:35basic needs.
32:36These now have to be produced
32:40in a different way
32:43by the people
32:45who depend on those jobs and who depend
32:47on the output of those jobs. What do I
32:50mean concretely? We now organize
32:55the production of goods and services
32:58in the following hierarchical
33:01way. We have a small group of people at
33:04the top.
33:06They have names. They are called the
33:09major shareholders
33:11of our major corporations
33:14and the boards of directors, the
33:16executives who in the end run them.
33:21You put these people together, they are
33:23a tiny percentage of our population.
33:28According to the US Census,
33:313% of Americans are employers and that
33:36includes self-employed.
33:40The other 97%
33:42are not.
33:44Every enterprise, with very few
33:47exceptions,
33:48has a tiny minority at the top, major
33:51shareholders,
33:53owners, shareholders, and the executives
33:56they appoint.
33:58And then below them, a huge mass
34:02of employees.
34:06All the major decisions
34:09about production
34:11are made by the tiny minority at the
34:15top.
34:16They decide what the output will be.
34:21They decide how the output will be
34:25produced. They decide where the output
34:30will be produced. And then they decide
34:34the distribution
34:36of income that the output and product
34:41enables.
34:43To no one's surprise, you should be
34:45aware
34:47that that is why that that organization
34:50is why the people at the top tend to
34:54give a disproportionate
34:57amount of the profits or surplus
35:01in production to themselves.
35:05That's why we have inequality
35:08of income.
35:10It is the micro foundation for the macro
35:15inequality we talked about in the last
35:18half hour.
35:20The arrogation to North America, Western
35:23Europe, and Japan of a wildly
35:25disproportionate
35:27share of the wealth of the earth.
35:31That has to be ended. Production has to
35:35be undertaken in a radically
35:38democratized
35:40way.
35:41The workplace has to become the
35:43democracy it never was.
35:47No small group of people at the top
35:50making the decisions. What to produce,
35:53how to produce, where to produce, and
35:56what to do with the output.
35:59That is now a set of decisions from
36:02which the mass of people are always
36:05excluded.
36:07Not because we don't like democracy. We
36:11give lip service to democracy
36:13every 10 minutes.
36:15But we never instituted at the
36:18workplace. We never did.
36:21The claim that we are a democratic
36:23society always and conveniently
36:27overlooked the organization
36:31in which most of us spend our work
36:33lives.
36:34As adults, 9:00 to 5:00, 5 days of the
36:37week, we're busy working. And that's
36:39where the goods and services we want and
36:42need come from.
36:44If democracy is a valuable
36:47concept, then why hasn't it been
36:49instituted at the workplace?
36:53You know that when you enter the
36:54factory, or the office, or the store,
36:58you're entering a place from [snorts]
37:01which democracy has been banned. So,
37:04here's my answer to your question.
37:07Democratize the enterprise.
37:11Democratize the workplace.
37:14If you do that, all the people together
37:17will make the decisions, what to
37:20produce, how to produce, where to
37:23produce,
37:24and what to do with the product. They
37:26won't concentrate production in Western
37:29Europe, North America, and Japan. Why
37:33would they? They wouldn't give Elon Musk
37:36a trillion dollars of personal wealth
37:39while most people don't have enough to
37:42send their kids to college. That will
37:44never happen in a democratic society,
37:48which is your clue as to why we don't
37:51have one.
37:54But you'll have to think at this level
37:56of profundity of radical, as in going to
38:00the roots,
38:02to deal with the level of problem we
38:04have. Otherwise, you are not serious.
38:09>> Yeah, that would be amazing if we could
38:10get something like that. Let's uh
38:11fortunately I'm not I'm not too sure if
38:13that would be the case, but uh Professor
38:15Wolff, thanks so much for your time
38:16today. I really appreciate it. My My
38:17last question is what is one message you
38:19want people to take away from the
38:20conversation.
38:23>> I think most people, and I'm talking of
38:25course about the United States, which I
38:28know better than other other societies.
38:31But but as I told you, uh because my
38:35father was French and my mother German,
38:37and I speak those languages, I have kept
38:40up with Europe.
38:41I think the urgent thing now
38:44is for the Europeans and the Americans,
38:47and I perhaps should add the Japanese,
38:49to understand
38:52that they have to make room
38:56for the correction of both the
38:58ecological
39:00and the economic
39:02change that the world is now demanding.
39:06They cannot hold on to the old
39:09privileges. They can't deny
39:12that history of which they are the
39:15product.
39:16Making an accommodation
39:19with a changing world is a much better
39:22plan than thinking you can hold back the
39:26very history your own development has
39:30put on the agenda.
39:32>> Yes, that's an important message. So,
39:33thanks again. If anyone wanted to find
39:34out more about your work and what you
39:36do, what would the best place for that
39:37be?
39:38>> Easiest thing to do, we have two ways to
39:41access us, a website,
39:43democracyatwork.info.
39:46That's all one word,
39:47democracyatwork.info.
39:50Or we maintain a Substack program. You
39:53just go to democracyatwork.substack.com,
39:59and that way you can access our
40:00publishing, we publish books, our
40:03videos, we do lots of them, radio and
40:06television program that I run, things
40:08like that, and those will
40:10open up everything we do, and there's no
40:13charge for most of it.
40:15>> Perfect. Great. I'll put that in the
40:16description below, but thanks again for
40:17your time.
40:18>> Thank you very much, Anthony.
40:21>> Hey everyone, thank you so much for
40:22listening. Really appreciate your
40:23support, and I hope you found amazing
40:25value out of this interview. If you
40:26really enjoyed it, we'd appreciate if
40:28you liked and subscribed or shared. It
40:30really helps with the podcast. We're
40:31still trying to expand, get to more
40:33people to help make sure that everyone
40:35understands and decode what's really
40:37happening in the world of finance,
40:38investing, macroeconomics, and
40:39geopolitics. If you enjoyed this one,
40:41then you might enjoy this other
40:42interview as well. So, really appreciate
40:44it, and thank you.

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