Our political class has lost control.

The right is getting more right than

ever. And [music] anytime you have a

combination of economic problems and

social and stability and cultural

problems, you put all those things

together, it's not a good time. It's a

time when conflict, violence, civil

unrest, all of these things are [music]

much more likely. Oh, civil unrest is

absolutely guaranteed.

>> And what you are now seeing is I I fear

the beginnings of a totally new level of

separation between people. We are on the

road to civil unrest and violence. But

I'm glad we're having this conversation

cuz these are difficult things to talk

about.

>> And that's why China is outperforming

the rest of the world. [music] There are

so many freedoms you don't get in

America that you do get in China.

>> Would you prefer a Chinese system if you

>> to America?

>> Yes.

>> What about political freedom, freedom of

the individual, freedom of speech? Do

you think Steven could run his show if

he was a Chinese citizen in China and

have any conversation he wanted?

>> And you think communism [music] is bad?

>> I grew up in the Soviet Union, so yes, I

do think communism is bad. and you end

up in a place where the the economy is

just screwed. So you get equality, but

everyone's just equally poor.

>> Constantine, [music] what is your

perspective on AI?

>> I think the biggest threat to humanity

if you talk about AI is actually the

fact that you're creating something

that's smarter than you. And if you're

creating a superior species, you will

become an [music] inferior species. Best

case scenario, you become a pet. Worst

case scenario, you become a cow.

>> So my next question logically becomes,

what can we do about it?

>> There is an actual solution that's

available that's clear. I think what we

should really be focusing on is

>> you're wrong.

>> This is where we're likely to have very

strong disagreement.

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Let's get on with the show. [music]

Constantin,

in terms of everything that's going on

in the world at the moment, what are the

subjects that are most concerning to

you? I think that I wrote an article a

couple of years ago called Why I Fear

the Future in which I basically

predicted that what you were about to

see was the rise of far-left populism

and the rise of right-wing populism and

ina some cases farright populism uh

particularly in Europe but also

elsewhere. And I think that's exactly

what you're seeing in the Western world.

And then geopolitically the war in Iran

uh will have an impact on the global

economy that's only going to fuel that

further. So I think the trend you people

have spent the last 10 years talking

about polarization without really

understanding the process that was

driving it in my opinion uh particularly

in Europe and what you are now seeing is

I I fear the beginnings of that process

actually going to a totally new level of

uh separation between people

>> and what's the root cause of that

>> well the root cause of that is a mixture

of things of course part of it is

economic Europe has basically stag

stagnated uh since the great financial

crisis. This country, Britain in

particular, has stagnated economically,

but a lot of it is uh the consequence of

mass unfettered immigration and people's

concerns about what has happened

culturally and demographically. And

these are difficult things to talk about

which you know some people find

challenging to even discuss. But it it's

very clear to me if you look at you know

the AFD in Germany, Marine Le Pen in

France, Georgia and Maloney in Italy,

Farage and Rupert Low in the UK, what we

saw in Sweet or however, however you

pronounce it, uh a couple of weeks ago

in Spain. These are all things just, you

know, the visual medium is very

powerful. When you see 60,000 people

enter a country illegally in in a day,

that sort of imagery is likely to create

a very strong amount of push back. Oh,

you came prepared, huh? Yeah. Well, you

know, if you're a normal person and you

see this, whatever your other views, you

just go, well, like like what's going

on? That that will be your question.

Whether you're a really nice, not racist

person who really really thinks, you

know, no human is illegal, like you're

thinking what is going on here. And uh

the compassion and empathy you might

feel for people um fleeing conflict for

example is unlikely to extend to

something like this because we know that

these people are economic migrants

overwhelmingly and they're coming if you

ask them which many people did and ask

them why are you here they will say I

want to have a better life for myself

which you know I don't blame people for

I myself have moved from a foreign

country to Britain you

>> and if you were in their position would

you do the same thing

>> well I I don't know the exact position

that they're in I I I what I can tell

you is I came to Britain legally because

that's what I thought you're supposed to

do. Are you supposed to follow the

rules? So, if I were in that position,

it depends what you mean by that

position. You know, if I had a wife and

children, would I abandon them to try

and get go get get to Europe? And, you

know, I don't know. But a lot of these

people are overwhelmingly young men who

probably don't have a wife and child.

So, it's difficult. I don't know. But if

you're in a situation where you had a

wife and child, let's say, and there was

a promise that if you got over that

border over there, you could have a

better life for your wife and child, a

significantly better life for your wife

and child and send the money home and

potentially even bring them over at some

point. Um, if you were currently living

in a point of hardship, would you cross

the border?

>> I don't know. I've never been in that

situation and we don't know. But but the

issue for for us, I think, in the West

is not so much do we have empathy for

those people. It's kind of unimportant

actually for this conversation. At at a

personal level, you want to feel like

we're all empathetic, but the reality is

it's a practical issue. We've talked

about this so many times on your show

about how so much of our decision-

making and public conversation is driven

by what makes us feel good as opposed to

what works. This doesn't work.

>> I think there is an element of the

importance of that question in the sense

that if you don't have empathy for them,

you blame them. You shut them outside

the hotels. I I think the blaming of

them is a pointless distraction and is

kind of irrelevant. The question is what

should we be doing about this, right?

And the fact is this is not acceptable.

>> And what caused it?

>> Yes. Well, what caused it is the world

is unequal and there are poor parts of

the world from which people would like

to move to richer parts of the world.

It's very understandable decision. But

unless you have a world in which

everybody has the same quality of life

everywhere, which we're never going to

have cuz that's not how the world works,

then countries will have to have borders

that they enforce. And that was the

consensus view around the West for for

the entirety of of its history.

>> And how is this contributing to the

problems that you described in the West?

If you're looking at that and you are uh

in the center, center center right,

maybe old school leftist who who sort of

believes in high levels of

redistribution but believes in borders

at the same time. You are looking at

that and you're going, "Our political

class has lost control. Our political

class allows tens of thousands of people

to enter Britain illegally on small

boats every year." People on the right

will look at that and say, "We need to

get tougher on borders. We need to get

tougher on immigration. We need to get

really tough on illegal immigration."

And as long as the political class left

and right refuses to address that issue,

as they have done for this entire time,

you will see more people on the right

adopting harder line slogans, harder

line policies when it comes to illegal

immigration and immigration more

broadly.

>> So it sounds a little bit to me like

we're saying unless we dress address

this, then the right has a very

effective marketing campaign. Well, the

right has a very legitimate grievance

about what's happening to their society

and that will be very effective

electorally of course.

>> And the other thing you said was

stagnation, economic stagnation, I'm

presuming.

>> Yeah, of course.

>> So this polarization that you're talking

about, this economic stagnation in

Europe, where does this lead us? Well, I

hate as you know to to make predictions

about the future with any great

confidence, but I think anytime you have

a combination of economic problems and

social and stability and cultural

problems, you put all those things

together, historically speaking, it's

not a good time. It's a time when

conflict, violence, civil unrest, all of

these things are much more likely.

Doesn't mean they're guaranteed. Doesn't

mean you can't change course. Doesn't

mean you can't course correct. But if

you don't, we are on the road to ci best

case scenario, civil unrest and violence

for sure.

>> Do you see evidence that there's going

to be a remedy to course correct the

issue you've described?

>> Currently, I don't see that being

addressed, but we are in in a in a time

when unusual things are possible. And so

at the next election in Britain, you may

see the right-wing populist come in. And

then the question is, can they do the

things that they're promising to the

people who will vote for them? And

there's a big question mark about that

because the things that they'll be

promising which is about addressing not

just this problem in terms of people

currently coming in but the people who

are already here you know I don't know

how much exactly we spend now but there

was a point at which we were spending8

million pounds a day on hotels for

illegal immigrants. So it tells you the

scale of the problem and it's a very

difficult problem to address because the

legal system and uh international

conventions and all sorts of other

things that are now in place and they're

now enforced make it very difficult to

address. It's not a dishonesty but the

thing that people on the right don't

tend to say is even once you've dealt

with illegal immigration, the country is

not magically going to be better. You

have to have an economy that's growing

for people to feel like their law has

got better. The fact that you have

rightly removed people who should never

have been allowed in in the first place

will contribute somewhat to easing their

concerns, but that's not going to solve

the problem. And so even if you get

right-wing populists into power, that's

not necessarily a remedy for addressing

the tensions that I'm talking about.

>> And in the United States, a different

set of issues, but maybe symptoms are

similar. polarization is leading to and

inequality is leading to a rise in

socialism and [snorts] and then the

right is getting more right than ever.

>> The right is getting more right than

ever. I think Trump's election was kind

of like the peak of it and and it's just

carried on in terms of ICE and

deportations and and whatever. And look,

there's a lot to be criticized about the

Trump administration. The one thing they

have done is close down the border. And

I think that's a very good thing and it

was very necessary. But in terms of the

the rise of socialism, and look,

democratic socialism, we should be

honest and just call it communism

because that's that's what it is. It's a

very unwise but understandable reaction

to the economic circumstances of young

people's lives in particular. If you're

locked out of the housing market, which

historically speaking is really the only

way for an ordinary person to accumulate

capital. If you don't have access to

capital at a time when asset prices are

inflating and and have been inflating

for a long time, you're basically

watching the possibility of capitalism

run away from you. Of course, you're

going to turn over the apple cart.

>> And you think communism is bad?

>> I I grew up in the Soviet Union, so yes,

I do think communism is bad.

Ideologically, it might sound great to

people, and I understand why. Equality

to all men, everyone being, you know,

equal in every way, it's wonderful. It

just doesn't it's not compatible with

human nature for all sorts of reasons.

The most obvious one is you know the the

basic 80/20 rule 80/20 rule of things.

Most people are not aware of it. But

what communist try communism tries to do

is to take from from the

disproportionately productive 20% and

spread it out across everybody else. The

problem is that disincentivizes the 20%

from doing anything. And so you end up

with a communist system like the one we

had in the Soviet Union where no one

really has any incentive to produce, to

create, to innovate. And so you get a

very stagnant econ economy. And on top

of that, then you have central planning

where the government is trying to decide

what to do. They're not getting market

signals about what's the right or wrong

thing to do. And you end up in a place

where the the economy is just screwed.

So you get equality, but everyone's just

equally poor.

Steve, uh,

>> what do you think in terms of what

Constantine said to me? What he said

that he thinks there's civil unrest

potential? Well,

>> civil unrest is absolutely guaranteed.

Uh, there's all I can see is civil

unrest ahead of us because it isn't just

communism in that sense. The Russian

Soviet version that you experienced uh,

that's failed us also capitalism. And

>> capitalism has failed us.

>> I think capitalism is going to fail. And

you guess who I blame for it?

>> Who? [clears throat]

>> Economists.

>> You're an Neocclassical mainstream

economists have a fantasy vision of

capitalism and that fantasy vision has

led them to trivialize what's happening

with global warming [snorts] and most

people simply aren't aware of that

they've they've done this. So nobody is

worrying about global warming because

they think it's something not nobody but

the the political authorities are not

putting any effort into global warming

because they read the economists and the

economists tell them that by 2100 if

temperatures rise by 3° there'll be a

tiny fall in GDP. So why worry about it?

In fact, we're starting to see the

beginning of it this this year with the

crazy on the coming our way, the crazy

weather we're living through in in

England right now and the system is

going to collapse because the productive

system won't be able to cope with the

change in the climate. So that's what I

see as the main source of conflict. I

don't I think the everything else we're

seeing is trivial compared to what

that's going to do.

>> What about So Constantin talked about

these crosses in Sua in Spain.

>> Yeah. and he was alluding to the fact

that this needs to be addressed or this

polarization which is having lots of

downstream consequences isn't going to

change. What is your perspective on I

again there's so much of a fog of

misinformation around these days that

it's very hard to know whether what you

hear is accurate. But the proposition

I've been told is that Morocco has close

relations with Israel and the Zionists

wanted this as a way of destabilizing

Spain, which is about the only country

in Europe that is attacking the Zionist

state. And so this was a political

setup.

>> Well, hold on a second. But Spain has

the ability to enforce its own border.

>> Of course it does. The fact that this

actually happened is arguably is being

argued and I don't know whether it's

right or not. I'm given up on trying to

say whether something is AI or not these

days, but it's the argument has been

that because the Spanish government came

out and was critical of Israel, critical

of Zionism, then this was a setup by the

Israelis through Morocco to disturb

Spain.

>> Hold on. What I'm I'm making a different

point of which is if my four-year-old

wants sweets at 11:00 at night,

that's true. But I am the idiot who

gives it to him and that and he then

stays up all night. and European

countries refuse to enforce their

borders. Whatever you think Israel is

doing, by the way, I've seen literally

zero evidence to support this theory,

but let's say it's true just for the

sake of argument. It's ultimately up to

Spain, it's up to Italy, it's up to

Britain, it's up to other European

countries to enforce the border. That is

something that we are capable of doing.

And it's not like this incident is the

only time this has happened. 3 million

people, slightly under, but around 3

million people have crossed the

Mediterranean on boats in the last 10

years.

>> Yeah. And of course,

>> so and that's not Israel doing it.

That's us allowing it to happen.

>> But also of destabilizing Libya.

>> Okay. If we if the Libyan slave markets

exist because we came, we saw he died.

Quote Hillary Clinton on that. The

extent to which the West has

destabilized the regions from which the

migrants are coming has to be

acknowledged. If you don't acknowledge

it, then you're blaming the people who

are the sandwich between two political

blocks.

>> But I I did acknowledge it. I'm I

completely understand and I've been

against a lot of the foreign

interventions that the West has engaged

in. But a lot of people, and we know

this from surveys, from interviews, from

the types of people who come, most of

these people are economic migrants.

Doesn't mean that they're wrong to

pursue a better life, but they want to

move to Europe. And I have I look, this

is not me saying it. It's a friend of

mine who is an Iraqi and this is what he

says. He says in the Middle East we have

a saying.

>> If you want to work, you go to America.

If you want to live on benefits, you go

to Europe. We are creating an incentive

structure in Europe that allows people

to come and feel like this is a place in

which we will provide a life for them

that they don't have to provide a life

for themselves in that incentive. I

mean, you're an economist although an

economist

>> an anti-conomist. Do you remember that

idea? But I doubt we disagree about the

importance of incentives and

>> incentives but also incentives to push

people out of where they are rather than

to reconstruct where they are and make

it more livable.

>> I am all I'm

>> and that I mean the one country we're

not seeing a lot of economic migrants

from is China. Now you say what

>> China's very

>> nonetheless nobody wants to leave the

place because it's booming. If there was

an economic stagnation in Europe, would

this subject be as

>> inflammatory for people? Would this be

we're failing on all sorts of fronts and

the UK is not a booming economy? You

>> you've often said, Constantine, that

we're spending too much money.

>> Well, we're borrowing money now to pay

off money we borrowed before.

>> This is wrong.

>> Tell me why.

>> Okay. Have you ever done accounting?

>> I've done my own accounting.

>> Okay. Okay. do the do the accounting and

you'll see the government does not

borrow when it spends more than it takes

back on taxation.

>> You you were asking me about spending

too much money. I don't want to get a

bogged down on this. The reality is if

you spend more on welfare than you do on

defense or if you spend more on welfare

than you do on education or if you spend

more on welfare than other things,

you're not spending money to help

somebody get the mental health

intervention they need to get back into

work. That's not what we do in this

country. And Andy Burnham actually is

talking at least about attempting that.

what we do instead and we've had people

like Fraser Nelson uh was the editor I

think he was the editor spectator at the

time now he's at the times who's done a

lot of research into this and what he

basically uh came to is that what we're

really doing is putting people in a

position where they they are getting

money in order not to get back into work

the incentive structure is such that it

actually makes no sense for them to to

get a starting job which will not

necessarily be well paid but the tax

incentives just mean that that they're

actually better off on welfare. If you

do that and if you spend a significant

portion of your budget on that, plus

you've got an aging population, so

you're spending a tremendous amount of

money on pensions. Pensioners vote.

There's lots of them. They have the

ability to make sure the government is

really looking after them. If you do

that over time, your ability to do

productive things, you talked about

productivity, is not going to be there.

And and by the way, the difference

between the US and and Britain and

Europe more broadly, in my opinion, is

partly cultural. uh you you've moved to

the US recently or you certainly spend a

lot of time there. There is a business

mindset that exists in America that just

isn't there here. And the other thing

is, you know, their uh attitude to what

we call welfare, what they call

entitlements, is different. And there's

a there's a good and bad side to that

coin. In America, you really really have

to work very hard to to to survive. Um

because the welfare system isn't there

to catch you when you fall nearly as

much. you don't get the same quality of

health care if you don't have the money

to pay for it. You can fire and hire

people much more easily as you know as

an employer. All of those things mean

that the US economy can accelerate a lot

faster. But, you know, I always say

America is a is a a great place to be

rich, hard place to be kind of middle

class and a very difficult place to be

poor. Europe is kind of the other way

around. And and so I think those are

some of the differences in productivity

as well. I'll agree with Constantine

that America does have that can do

attitude and they also do have the

attitude that failure is the first step

on the ladder of success. Okay, there is

an expectation or acceptance that people

can fail and then recreate. It's not a

stigma in America where it's more of a

stigma over in in the United Kingdom and

Europe. So I think that is part of it.

It's also the scale of the American

economy. Uh England, I think, has

suffered more from the Thatcherite SW uh

twist. Cutting back government spending,

meaning people have less money in their

pockets to spend, meaning there's less

econ economic activity, meaning you've

got to go into debt to be able to start

a business. All these things end up

slowing down the rate of economic

growth. America has not made the same

mistake that the European Union had made

with something like the master treaty.

There are elements of the American

system uh which give you a higher rate

of technological innovation and

development than England gets. For sure.

>> Uh

>> so Steve, so just to pick up on some of

those points then are you saying that

the UK

>> don't have a spending problem?

>> No, they don't have they they have the

problem. They're not spending enough.

The government should be spending more.

>> The government should be spending more

money on the opposite on what education,

>> welfare, infrastructure, dams for a

start. You know how many dams? One of

the reasons that we've got a potential

crisis in the UK right now is the UK

after privatizing its water 40 years ago

has one less dam now than it had 40

years ago.

>> So you want the government to spend

more.

>> The government should be providing the

infrastructure. The foundation that

enables economic activity to act to

occur. That's what we're seeing

happening in China. And that's why China

is outperforming the rest of the world.

When you cut back on providing the

infrastructure, you mean you've got to

build your own roads to connect your

factories together. Okay. So, by not

providing the long-term stuff which a

government should finance, you end up

hobbling your private sector rather than

enabling it.

>> But what you've done there is you've

packaged a bunch of things together.

Some of which in my opinion are accurate

and some of which are really inaccurate.

When you say infrastructure, welfare du

infrastructure like I'm in favor of

government borrow money to invest in

things that generate productivity

>> and I'm in favor of them spending money

to create that stuff. Same thing, but

the borrowing is not important.

irrelevant where where you get that

money from is actually irrelevant.

>> The government spending money to invest

in useful infrastructure, productive

infrastructure. I mean, one of the other

reasons the US is growing in a different

way to us, uh, the UK has the highest

industrial electricity prices in the

world. So, if you're trying to do AI,

>> you're not going to do it here. If

you're trying to do industry, you're not

going to do it here. Right? So if if the

government had actually made it easier

to build nuclear power plants, to do

other energy things that drive down the

cost of electricity, then you are

putting yourself in a position to

succeed in industry and to succeed in

business. And the government spending

money, whether it's borrowed or not, to

build infrastructure, housing, roads,

there is definitely a a case to be made

for that. Giving money to people not to

work, which is what a lot of the welfare

bill is, that is not productive. And so

you got to separate these two things

out. Money for infrastructure,

wonderful, great. Money for keeping

people unproductive, very bad. And

culturally, it creates a lot of problems

as well because you create a society of

people who are effectively takers and

not creators and it's terrible.

>> I don't think we're doing that. I mean,

I've seen unemployment benefits used to

be adequate. Like, I'm talking from my

Australian experience now. Uh they're

not anymore. So, the welfare that's

provided to people doesn't mean that

they can survive and live with with

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>> The other point was you said you think

the government should be spending even

more money.

>> Yeah.

>> Um the point around how we generate

growth does link fundamentally to

energy. Um, we have there's a big

conversation happening at the moment

with with Andy Bernham. I think he spoke

to Trump about this with about the North

Sea.

>> Yeah.

>> And about the oil in the North Sea. Do

you think we should be drilling there?

>> Uh, look, the energy conversation it

this is where we're likely to have very

strong disagreements, but I think it's

important to get the the groundwork in

place before we have the conversation.

>> Um, we I mean Steve said that, you know,

no one's taken climate change seriously.

I would argue and I think we I think

it's based in in what we have seen.

We've talked about climate change in

such a way for such a long time now that

you literally have people who are so

terrified they're not having children.

They're so terrified they've got climate

anxiety. We had, you know, the

phenomenon on Greta Tumbberg going

around, you know, giving speeches

everywhere being taken as a credible

person. Let's look at the reality, okay?

Almost all of the CO2 emissions, not

almost all but the overwhelming bulk of

the CO2 emissions of the future, the

greenhouse gases of the future are going

to be produced in two countries, India

and China. That's just a fact. Uh the

world now uses more oil, more gas and

more coal than it ever has done ever.

And people will say, well, China is

building dams and wind turbines and

solar panel arrays, etc. It's true, but

they're also building coal power

stations every week. They're building

every form of energy that they can

because they know something we in the

West have forgotten, which is GDP is

energy transformed.

>> No, they would completely agree.

>> Okay.

>> Okay. That's a shock, but I do.

Fantastic. Okay.

>> In other words, if you don't have

energy, if you're not creating energy,

you are going to be poor. Almost all

wealth creation in the history of

humanity has been about using more dense

fuel.

So you go from hay which you put into

horses and cows and other animals to

coal to wood to coal to uh oil to to gas

to nuclear you get denser denser denser.

You're creating more energy and you

convert that energy into wealth into

prosperity into hospitals into schools

into money into everything. Right? So

any society which creates a structure

where energy is expensive and not

abundant is going to get poorer. It's

one of the main reasons we are

stagnating in Europe in a way that

America is not. Okay.

>> Now in terms of climate change I don't

want to get bogged down in how impactful

this is, who's doing this, who's doing

that. The hard reality is Britain can

literally do absolutely nothing about

climate change. Britain produces 1% of

global carbon emissions, right? And the

narrative was, well, it doesn't really

matter that we only produce 1% of global

carbon emissions because Britain has

moral leadership in the world. And so,

if we reduce our energy consumption and

if we increase our energy prices and we

slightly repackage and we use slightly

more wind and slightly more solar, uh,

then other countries will follow suit.

That was the argument. It's very clear

now that that is not remotely happening.

India and China. If you talk to people

in India and China, they're like, "We

want to grow. We need our people to be

prosperous. We need our people not to

die." I mean, life expectancy in India

at the time of partition in 1930, 1947

was 32 years old. That's how long people

lived. Life expectancy at birth was 32

years old. It's now I think over 70 or

maybe 80 now at this point, right? And

that's because they've been burning

fossil fuels and they're going to keep

burning fossil fuels and they're going

to keep using nuclear and they're going

to do everything else. Britain can't

affect that. We can't do anything about

it. and climate the planet will get

warmer. So what we should be doing is

investing in infrastructure that allows

us to cope with that reality in exactly

the way the Dutch have done. So they

build flood defenses and other ways of

managing the fact that sea levels

change. That's the only thing that we in

Britain can do about that issue. And in

the meantime, rather than suiciding our

economy by creating less energy and

therefore reducing our our ability to

grow our GDP, what we should be doing is

creating a system where we produce

abundant cheap energy. And you know,

Nick Kle, former deputy prime minister,

there's there's a very instructive video

of him 15 or 20 years ago being asked

why we're not building nuclear power

stations. Him saying, "Well, it's going

to take 15 20 years. Well, it's been 15

20 years and we don't have any bloody

nuclear power stations because of the

short-sightedness of our political

leaders on these issues." So, should we

be pumping out as much CO2 into the

atmosphere as we can? Absolutely no, we

shouldn't be. Should we have a sensible

energy policy that is about making sure

that we actually grow our economy and

keep our people wealthy and also have

the money to make the adjustments we're

going to have to make to the fact that

climate will change and we can't control

that. That's the real question. It's not

about do you believe climate change or

whatever. This is silly conversation.

The real conversation is what can we do

about the inevitable reality of the

climate changing?

>> And you're saying we can't do anything

to stop it. But you're also then saying

we should just build defenses to deal

with the symptoms.

>> We should adapt. And this is what human

beings have done throughout the history

of our of our of our civilization and of

our species. There have been times when

the planet has been way warmer than it

is today. 12,000 years ago. So there

were hippopotamuses swimming in the

temps and elephants.

>> No, not 12,000 years, please.

>> I'm pretty sure it is 12,000 years ago

is the beginning of coming out of the

ice age.

>> Would you just check check me on that

please?

>> No.

>> 12,000 years ago, Britain was coming out

of the last ice age. The climate was

cold. Y tundra-like.

>> Um,

>> just let let them finish.

>> So, because it was cold, but it says

120,000 years ago.

>> Yeah. Naming it. Yeah. 120,000 years

ago. What I'm saying is the climate has

changed in in all sorts of different

ways. 2,000 years ago, the Romans group

rapes on Hadrien's wall, right? And, uh,

200 years ago was really cold. The temps

would freeze every year, etc. This

happens. People have to adapt to it. Uh,

and we're going to have to do it. So

Steve, the assertion there is that the

UK can't do anything about climate

change in terms of affecting on a global

scale, but they can defend themselves

against it by

>> No, you can't.

>> You can't walk.

>> You can't you can't you cannot defend

yourself against what England faces if

climate change continues. England will

become a this is the most some of the

most recent research on what's called

the Atlantic medional overturning

circulation. you're aware of the AMO

that translates about 10 degrees Celsius

of heat from the south actually the

middle of the of the Atlantic up to

Europe. If it stops running,

temperatures in Europe on average fall

by 10°.

>> So I guess the central question here is

there is there something the UK can do

to affect global climate change?

>> Not on its own.

>> Okay.

>> Not on its own. Okay.

>> Because when you look at China and

India,

>> yeah,

>> they have increased their carbon

emissions. China is actually having

falling per capita emissions at the

moment. Even though they're building a

power stations, they're building so many

nuclear for cheaper than they're doing

in the west. So many wind and solar that

they're actually reducing their carbon

footprint

>> per capita

>> and their capita is falling as well.

Okay.

>> So, so they're reducing their carbon

emissions.

>> They're reducing their carbon emissions.

Are they? Okay. And that's been the last

two years. It's only in the last two

years this has started to happen. But

China is now reducing.

>> What about India? India absolutely going

gang busters in the opposite direction

because it's far less developed of

course than China. So they'll keep

developing.

>> They will keep on doing it until such

time as they have their first wet bulb

catastrophe.

And when say 10 or 20 million people die

from heat in one day, then I think India

will start doing something very

different. But there's there's a belief

this is something we can adjust to and

the forces we're talking about are far

beyond anything humans have any capacity

to adjust towards. Now the amock the

reason I mentioned the Atlantic midional

overturning circulation I love the

abbreviation it's going to make this

country go on mock because the

temperature range for London if the AMO

fails is estimated to be between minus

20° C and plus 35.

>> See can the UK do anything about it if

if our emissions are

>> so we can't we cannot do anything as as

as a bunch of nations fighting each

other. Okay, this whole attitude that

we're this contest with that country,

this country's better than that country,

etc., etc., this is derming us to

extinction.

>> But is this real?

>> I'm going to out Greta Thanberg, Greta

Thunderberg in this conversation now

because I know a lot more than you guys

do about the climate science. Okay,

>> agree. What what I'm really saying is if

we talk about human incentives, do we

have any control over what India decided

to do?

>> No, we don't.

>> Do we have any control over what China

decided to do?

>> None whatsoever.

>> So, can does the UK then need to does it

need to be a bit selfish? We need to

realize how serious the situation we're

in is

>> and what will we then do? We realize

it's ser let's say we accept your point.

This is the reality.

>> Okay.

>> What what do we do?

>> We would have to drastically reduce

energy consumption.

>> Ah

>> okay. Energy consumption is vital for

GDP completely 100% agree. I know the

statistics on this front.

>> The link between gross world product

this equivalent of GDP for the planet

and energy is incredibly tight. They're

one for one. Okay. If energy goes up so

does gross world product. If GWP goes

down, so does energy consumption.

They're one for one.

>> So, Steve, when you say we need to

reduce energy, do you mean the UK?

>> I mean the species. I mean human

species.

>> So, how does Andy Burnham do that?

>> We are not set up to deal with this

problem because we're broken into nation

states. We can't make decisions that

have

>> So, we need world government to reduce

world energy consumption.

>> We're going to be stuck with that. Yes,

we're going to be stuck with it.

>> Well, see this what I'm glad we're

having this conversation cuz at least

this is the first time and I mean this

in a genuinely respectful way. It's the

first time I've ever heard anyone be

honest about this issue. That's what you

want. You want world government.

>> I don't want it.

>> You believe it's inevitable by ignoring

this problem. We've got to the scale.

You believe it's a potential threat to

us. We have a world government that

reduces world energy consumption and

therefore the prosperity of everyone.

>> And if we had taken the advice of the

limits to growth 50 years ago, we would

not be having this conversation. Okay.

We have delayed for half a century.

>> Is there any solutions that you believe

are actually possible then? No.

>> No.

>> There we go. You've done a public

service here because you have showed

what it is that sits underneath all the

conversation about climate. It's a best

case scenario people who know there's

nothing we can do. But what we should do

is flail about in the meantime and in

order to not address this issue

impoverish not just in this case our

citizens and our fellow people but

actually the entire world. That's that's

what this is. And the entire challenge I

have to this is I don't believe in

suicide for token gestures towards not

solving a problem you're claiming to

solve. Right? We are not going to solve

this problem by creating a world

government and reducing energy

consumption. That is never ever in a

billion years.

>> What we're going to do instead is run

into the crisis and fall apart from the

process. What we're going to do instead,

and look, you may there's a possibility

you're correct about that, but the only

choice we actually have to solve this

problem is to create forms of energy

that do not produce CO2, but produce

GDP. Clean energy. That's what we're

going to have to do. By the way, it's

what we've done throughout history.

>> And we need to make that clean energy

more favorable in terms of the economics

to India and China. Did you need a world

government to reduce usage of the horse

and car and replace it with the

automobile? No, you didn't. You came up

with a better technology and people

adopted that technology voluntarily

because it was advantageous. This is not

going to be solved by making everybody

poor. Well, for the reasons that Steve

himself articulated, but it's also not

going to be solved by making everybody

because people will not do it. You say

you need everybody to to hold hands on

Sink Kumbaya and

>> what I'm saying is we need to have

engineers in control and we're talking

about it 50 years ago.

>> Engineers in

>> engineers we should stop having

elections.

>> Sorry

compared to with politicians we get Yes.

I'd rather get rid of elections and have

engineers running everything. They do a

damn side better job than a politicians

have done.

>> Well, and this is why I say this is a

public service because this is what this

is the true face of the climate

catastrophe narrative. We need world

government. don't want elections and we

want to make everybody and we've got it

out in the air.

>> Okay. Now, I'm going to go back and say

where it started. It started in 1972

when the limits to growth study was

published and the limits to growth said

that if we if we continue on the current

trajectory, we're going to have an

ecological catastrophe sometime in the

21st century. Okay, they deliberately

left the dates vague. They knew they

couldn't predict the actual date. So,

they said 1900's the start of our work,

2100's the end. in the middle of their

projections, roughly speaking about the

time we are now between 2030 and 2050,

the system would start falling over

because we'd be eliminating the capacity

of the planet to support our species at

the energy consumption levels that we

have now. So they said we had to reduce

dramatically pollution per unit of

output. Uh it uh stabilized population

at 4 billion people. That was the

argument they wanted to stabilize at 4

billion people in 1975. Okay, we

wouldn't be having this dilemma if we'd

actually taken the advice of the

engineers who wrote that report. It

wasn't written by hippies. Most people

think limits are growth by a bunch of,

you know, dope smoking hippies in in in

Rome. It was written by engineers in

MIT.

>> Steve, one of the things, you know, one

of the things that I um I spend a lot of

time doing on this podcast is trying to

find reality through like wishful

thinking. And you know, I have a lot of

conversations about AI, for example. it.

I see so many parallels with AI because

we're saying look AI could be a big

problem but when you look at human

incentives the US are trying to beat

China and China are trying to beat this

person and they're trying to beat them

and even in the US you've got you've got

open AI trying to be anthropic so when

you look at incentives you go okay I

kind of see can see how this is going to

play out there's an inevitability to it

>> in the example you gave there what I'm

hearing is reduce pollution which would

have meant getting China and India and

the US and the UK and Europe to all

cooperate y

>> which is as has proven to be

>> impossible without political systems.

>> And the other thing you mentioned was

stopping people having babies,

>> stabilizing at 4 billion,

>> which would have come with a a lopsided

economy, lots of other problems.

>> I mean, we've seen it. It it wasn't it

just like it wasn't

>> and and the fossil fuel lobbies and

conventional economists undermined all

that stuff. So, the reason we're having

this conversation now is you basically

think we've got to adapt. It's like

we're going up a hill, so we've got to,

you know, have a lighter car or more

power for the car or whatever else. I'm

saying we're 5 in from from a brick

wall. Okay? And we're not going to slow

down in time to hit the wall. We're

going to hit the wall. Brace yourselves,

okay? Brace for impact. That's the

advice I've given.

>> But when I asked you earlier if we need

world government, you said yes. If I

asked you, it's not going to happen. I

know it's not going to happen. The only

way out of this is to do it collectively

with with this obvious example. We're

going to do it competitively and shoot

each other in the foot in the process.

We'd realize that each nation had to

reduce its energy consumption or get a

higher efficiency out of its energy 50

years ago with the engineering.

>> Who's the wei that would have realized

this? You would have needed a world

government back then.

>> You would need you needed politicians

who understand what the engineers told

them,

>> right?

>> Instead, you had politicians who

listened to the media and listened to

the oil interests and trivialized these

whole dangers. And that's why now it's

in a catastrophic I mean I truly believe

we're on the edge of a catastrophic

breakdown of human civilization. In that

situation if you wanted to stop it

happening you would need to have global

coordination authoritarian etc etc. If

we done it 50 years ago we wouldn't need

any of this.

>> Steve how would you go to India and tell

them that they can't use energy when

they're they're at the very some people

in India

>> the women are dying in child birth and

their children are starving.

>> Yeah. Yeah. I mean the

>> and you go to India. No, no, no. You

can't grow.

>> We have an ignorance about the biosphere

on which we live. Okay. The the our

understanding of the biosphere itself

and the impact that our civilization has

on the biosphere is trivial and

therefore we have these discussions as

if the biosphere will take care of

itself.

>> I think we all agree that climate change

is both real and a huge existential

problem. And the evidence for that is we

can we can observe it. We can measure

it. I mean, even now we're going through

one of the sort of record-breaking

periods of weather volatility. Both sort

of the western United States and Western

Europe are experiencing historically

severe record-breaking weathers at the

moment we get. So my next question

logically becomes what can we do about

it?

>> It's too late.

>> Okay. The extent to which we're unaware

of the energy forces we've unleashed on

the planet are huge. And when when you

find that people think all this stuff is

going to happen in, you know, it's a

couple of, you know, decades away or,

you know, half a century away and

somebody else's problem.

>> When is it going to happen?

>> I've got a feeling the next 10 years.

>> Next 10 years.

>> What's going to happen?

>> The beginning of the breakdown of our

our capacity to maintain a civilization

on the planet. I'm probably wrong in

terms of timing. I'm probably putting it

too far in the future. Okay. I might be

wrong.

>> Might be less.

>> Yeah, could be less. I really really

hope all three of us live long enough to

be able to sit down. So do I. I hope I'm

wrong. This is I'm desperately hoping

I'm wrong.

>> Can you define what you mean by climate

breakdown specifically? What does that

look like for me as I walk out on the

street?

>> Let's say the one of the the big ones

again, the Atlantic Maral overturning

circulation, the AOK. The most recent

estimates is that's going to stop

functioning sometime between last year

because hasn't yet happened and 2095.

When that happens, the temperature on

Europe will fall roughly speaking by 3°

per decade for three decades. So the

temperature in Europe on average will

fall by 10°. The extremes will become

even more ridiculous. So this is

research from Tim Lenton, Exod

University professor of climate change.

The range of temperatures in London will

be between minus 20 and plus 35. Okay.

Now, what's the chance of London

surviving that scale of temperature

range? You can you can't even cope with

leaves on the train lines here. That's

one thing I found ridiculous. As an

Australian arriving in London and find

my train from from from Waterloo to

Kingston is slowed down because there

are leaves on the rail. Leaves on the

rail. Has that never happened before?

What are your engineers doing about

that? Why don't you have trains that

move the leads? This sort of unprepared

nature. We are completely unprepared for

the scale of what we face.

>> Look, as someone who is Russian, minus

20 is a nice spring day for me. But

[laughter] look, we're being silly about

it. I I think if we ground this

conversation in the realms of the

possible uh and look at what we can do,

it seems to me that the only thing we

can do is create forms of energy that do

not produce emissions that we believe

are contributing to the changing

climate. A world government is not going

to happen. that the level of

coordination is not going to happen. The

authoritarian uh world run by engineers

is not going to happen. These are not

realistic things to be talking about.

Let's talk about what we actually can

do. What we can do is plow all the money

we have wrongly plowed into trying to

mitigate this issue into trying to

create forms of energy that are actually

going to work not only to solve this

problem but actually to fuel prosperity

to fuel technological innovation and to

to create a better world as opposed to

uh thinking that you know like we're all

doomed and nothing is possible.

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life. So let's let's take a look at this

situation which is somewhat linked. This

is uh the straight of Hormuz.

>> Yep.

>> This is US oil reserves at the moment in

rapid decline.

>> Yep. Yep. Yep.

>> What is your perspective on what's going

on in the the Middle East at the moment?

Constantine. Why has this happened?

>> So

one of the things I think it's very

important not to do is project our own

ideas onto people who we've never met

like President Trump. I assume none of

us have met President Trump etc. So I

can only tell you what I know from

speaking to people in his

administration, other people who have

some access to the administration's

thinking etc. My understanding and it's

a very frustrating thing uh to have to

articulate and to believe but it is true

is that the level of analysis we all

have about the complicated minations of

how different departments in the US

government you know work out the complex

it really isn't

>> as complicated than that and I think we

all wish it was sometimes Trump walked

into a trap I think he walked into a

trap that it was a sugar high from

Venezuela you know there was a kind of

feeling of perhaps invulnerability and a

and a sort of belief that we can solve

every problem. And Iran is different to

Venezuela. Iran has the ability to choke

off the world's supply, not just of oil,

but I think as you discussed with Steve

when you recently had him on, of gas, of

helium, natural gas, of helium, uh

fertilizer, and lots of other things.

And it hasn't quite fed through to the

global economy in the way that people

have talked about in a catastrophizing

way. Uh but if this carries on, it will

do because our stocks, you you you've

got this talking about oil. M

>> but it's stocks of other things too are

going to start running out and the price

of those things is going to go up and so

then the many predictions that people

like Steve have been making are likely

to come true. We had Senator Ted Cruz on

our show around the time this war was

launched. He's not only a huge supporter

of President Trump but a huge supporter

of this conflict that he advocated for

it and when I said to him look come the

midterms this is not going to be good

for you and for your party. and his

words, his exact words, I'm quoting from

memory, so maybe they're not his exact

words, but the the the broad theme of

what he said was, uh, if we're still in

this conflict come the midterms, we

failed. I suspect that that is almost

certainly going to happen. You've just

shown me a picture of President Trump's

approval ratings. They seem to verify

what I'm saying. And so, I I think he's

walked into a trap. And uh you've had

people on on your show to articulate why

the trap will continue to to bear uh

fruit for the Iranians. You know,

there's this great saying in in the

east, in the west, you have all the

watches. In the east, we have all the

time.

>> They don't have midterms in Iran. They

can wait. They can take the pain and the

punishment that they're currently

experiencing for as long as they really

need to. This is kind of like their

battle of Stalingrad. They can take the

pain. They can throw men at the problem.

they can throw bodies at the problem as

long as they need to because they know

the US can't go the distance. Uh and

because of that, the incentive structure

is for the Iranians to hold on as long

as possible because they know that the

US will have to deal with this reality.

So I think it's been a catastrophic

mistake.

>> And do you think Iran are actually going

to be stronger on the other side of

this?

>> Nobody knows exactly. They're definitely

stronger now than they were. But look,

this all of this is very unpredictable.

I think we should be very careful about

uh making predictions about the future

of countries that we understand very

little in the west from the outside.

This is very difficult for anyone

outside of Iran today to understand

what's happening in Iran. The example I

like to give is Nicholas Nichol Chowesk

uh the Romanian dictator. He had a 92%

approval rating the day before he was

seized with his wife and sumearily

executed. The predictability of how long

a regime survives in in these countries

is difficult to judge from the outside.

Currently, Iran has a chokeold on the

global economy and they're leveraging it

very powerfully.

>> You predicted a famine, Steve.

>> Yeah, I think it's still going to

happen. But the thing is, it's again

there's a question of what the stocks

are. Like for example, we know this

story about the US strategic oil

reserve. We also know that China had a

huge reserve and they've run that

reserve down from about one and a half

years of supply of oil for them to I

don't know what amount, but they're

going back in the opposite direction

now. So we didn't need to know what the

stocks of all these products were around

the globe beforehand. So when you make

an estimate, yes, there's going to be a,

you know, running out of oil. Well,

China reduced its oil consumption.

America's running at stock down. At some

point though, with the because the flow

is still blocked through this straight

and there won't be the oil, there won't

be the fertilizer, there won't be the

sulfuric acid. All these things will not

be available. And then we'll have a a

physical hit coming out of all that. And

I can completely agree. Trump was sold a

pup. It's the old expression. And we're

paying the price.

>> Is there any way out of this in your

view, Steve?

>> I think America has to leave the Middle

East. That's about the only long-term

resolution. America stops interfering in

the Middle East.

>> If if they were to leave now, the issue

that they face is they've now given

Iran, they've sort of established a

precedence where Iran can use the

straight of Hormuz, which is like a

proxy for the global economy, as a

bargaining chip. And so if you're Iran,

you now can proceed potentially with

your nuclear program and if they come

back, you shut down the global economy

via the straight up moose.

>> Yeah.

>> Or you you you sort of kneecap it at

least,

>> which is why it was a catastrophically

bad decision to provoke them in the

first place.

>> The thing that no one really talks about

and it's an issue close to my heart with

the Ukrainian family and and you know

the conflict there is something that's

very important to me is one of the hopes

I had for the Trump presidency was that

he would find a way to bring that

conflict to a close. This has only made

things better for Russia. The the fact

that they've had to lift sanctions on

Russian oil, for example, in order to

compensate for the lack of supply. This

is allowing Russia to continue this war

and to fund its war. And so I just it's

been a disastrous intervention um and

really really unfortunate uh in the way

that it's been done.

>> Do you think this is going to completely

tarnish his presidency more than any

other issue?

>> It depends on how it ends. The only way

out of this that I can see at the

moment, look, there's

>> again, these things are very

unpredictable. I think we really should

be very honest about that. But the way

that that I see it at the moment is his

only way out really. I don't know about

pulling out the Middle East. That seems

a bit extreme. But the best way for him

to get out of this is to find a way to

to sell Americans on the lie that it's

been a success.

>> Yeah, that is the only way he's going to

get out of this. if he can find a way to

sell a terrible deal, which he's going

to have to sign with Iran as a victory

for America, which Trump is uniquely

placed to do, let's be honest, right?

His ability to sell things is pretty

pretty strong. Then he can leave with

less egg on his face than otherwise. at

which point how the world judges him for

a temporary interruption of oil and

fertilizer and gas supplies. How history

judges him is hard to say, not least

because he's still got time in his term

to either do good things or or to do

more things that don't work out well.

But uh at the moment, this is a conflict

who whose only resolution that it seems

to me is for him to accept the reality

that he made a mistake and to find a way

to extricate himself from it without

admitting it was a mistake. Steve

mentioned that he predicts a famine is

coming, a global famine.

>> Yeah.

>> Do you agree with that?

>> Depends how long it runs.

>> It depends how long I mean I have

friends in Australia who are farmers and

when this first started they were

telling me they can't get hands on

fertilizer be even at the quotas they

already had

>> and again context here is that a lot of

fertilizer comes from via the straight

of Hormuse.

>> Yeah to all over the world. But even if

even if say you get your supply of

fertilizer not from the Middle East,

well given that the supply of fertilizer

is no longer coming from the Middle

East, the people who used to get it from

the Middle East now have to get it from

somewhere else and there's less of it to

go around. Therefore, price goes up,

quotas allocations go down, you can't

plant the crops, etc., etc., etc., etc.

>> Yeah. Like on the the Australian front,

I've got friends in the same boat and

they tell me that uh about half the

usual wheat crop has been laid because

of the cost of fertilizer which and

Australia used to produce seven times as

much food as it needs for its people. So

it's going to produce three times as

much food, three and a half and that

means of course less availability for

food around the world. And this is going

to be a global phenomenon when where it

hits again very hard to say because you

don't know what stocks exist. You don't

know how dependent different

agricultural systems are on the

fertilizer they that they bring in. But

yeah, it's it's a catastrophically bad

decision and the only way that Trump can

get out of it is to lose and declare

victory. That's what he'll do. Well,

>> there's midterm elections coming up

which could have a big impact, but

there's also the 2028 elections coming

up for the presidential position. Um, a

lot of people are now forecasting that

the Democrats, the left side of politics

or potentially even a socialist

candidate is going to get into office.

Do you think that would be a net good

thing for the United States?

>> Well, after Trump, anything is going to

be better. Okay. So, yes, I do because

again, I think America's pushed far too

far in the, you know, independent

self-reliance, don't let the state do

anything. Uh, and you get an unbalanced

economy out of that.

>> Do you think the US needs a democratic

socialist candidate? Yeah. Yeah.

>> Why?

>> Because they will promote the need for

the the public goods that the private

the public sector provides and the

private sector does not. We've got the

classic illustration here with water

supplies for the UK. We privatized them

40 years ago. What's the consequence?

You can't swim in any river in the

United Kingdom anymore because they're

polluted with feces. The beaches are

impossible as well. We have one less dam

than we had 40 years ago. Privatizing

resources which take a long time to

construct is a recipe for those

resources not to be constru created in

the very first instance. Whereas China

with obviously a socialist economy has

built the energy supplies you were

mentioning earlier. They have provided

the uh the transportation the education

it's extremely hard to get in. You can't

buy your way in that the education is

publicly funded. All these things show

that you need a balance between the

public and private sector. And America's

gone too far in the private direction

and we now need to swing switch switch

back in the opposite direction.

>> China's model would be better.

>> Yeah. Because I mean if if it it

provides the infrastructure that enables

a private sector to thrive if you don't

have the energy as you were saying

earlier then you can't even imagine

building the private sector facilities

or if you do they've got to be used at

the expense of some other activity. So,

we're seeing Americans protesting about

rising energy prices because of data

centers being established and rising

problems with the water supply for the

same reason.

>> Steve would prefer a socialist

government coming into the United States

in the next election cycle.

>> Democratic socialists, there's a big

difference. Democratic socialism is is

the same idea that has been tried

repeatedly and failed repeatedly, which

is communism. It's sort of the idea that

if we elect communists instead of having

them win in the revolution that it'll

all be better. It won't be. policies

don't work. And by the way, the one

thing

>> the Soviet policies obviously did not

work.

>> Yeah.

>> Russia failed. No doubt about that.

Okay. China's succeeding. So what's the

difference between the two? Why is the

Chinese system being so successful and

the Russian success been so abjectly a

failure?

>> Well, in the 1930s, a lot of people

thought that the the rapid

industrialization of the Soviet Union

was a massive success. I I think it's

worth remembering that communist

societies lie all the time about the

real figures in their economy and they

create fake growth and fake numbers

about all of these things. We know for

example that almost certainly according

to the intelligence assessment of pretty

much any every western intelligence

service that the the uh co virus came

from a lab in China something they lied

about to the world and still haven't

paid any price for and the way they lie

about that is the way they will lie

about other things including economic

growth and all sorts of other things in

the short term models can look appealing

uh if you don't understand the full

implications of what it is but also you

got to remember that uh the Chinese

system is not just about the economy

it's also about what rights people have

and don't have. The right to express

your opinion freely, the right to

criticize the government, the right I

mean, we talk about private enterprise

in China. If you're a private uh

business owner in China, there's no such

thing really cuz the moment you are

inconvenient to the government, you're

going to disappear and come back

suddenly with a totally different new

set of beliefs about what's right and

wrong and who's right and who's wrong.

So, um I think we should be very very

very careful about pray praising

communist dictatorships.

I have friends in China, both nationals

and and immigrants,

>> who tell me that the the level of

discussion and argument in China is far

far greater than people think. You don't

get left versus right conversations.

Okay, you've got a political system

which you're uh you're not going to

change communist party be in control and

so on. But the level of debate over what

policy should be uh whether the

government should balance its books,

whether the government should run a

deficit, whether the government should

build infrastructure or not. Um there's

enormous debate there.

>> So people do have there's more conflict,

but it's mediated. It's not conflict

that leads to flipping from one party

one year to opposite attitude at the

next election and so on. Do you think

Steven could run his show if he was a

Chinese citizen in China and have any

conversation he wanted?

>> I think so. I maybe not as broad as this

one. Probably more limited. I will agree

with that. Okay. They probably would be

more limited. But I've been involved.

You know, if you have you spoken on the

Chinese Global Television Network, I

presume

>> I haven't.

>> Okay. Well, that's the conversations

that I've had there are comparable to

what I'm having here. And so those

conversations get broadcast in China.

>> Well, you're clearly very in favor of

China. It doesn't surprise me that they

would have you on their TV channel.

That's not the point I'm making. The

point I'm making is Xi Jinping, the

current president of China, has purged

dozens of people who are internal

critics within his own party, people in

the military, people in the political

system who disappear one after another

and uh business leaders of all kinds.

The reason I keep having to remember

things, I've got I've got the Jackmar,

but others too. Um I've got young I've

got new dad brain, so I haven't slept

properly for fair enough. I understand

that problem. Um uh but yeah, so if

you're a business owner in China, it's

not really your it's like kind of like

in Russia, there's no private private

enterprise.

>> I think that's an exaggeration. Okay.

Because the the Russ the Russian

situation, yes, there was only one

motorbike making company in the entire

country. China apparently has about 130

car companies. Okay. um they have

managed to combine the central planning

that the Soviets had with the

competition that the west has in one

model and a lot of it comes back and I'd

love to know the extent to which they

were influenced by

a friend of mine called Janus Cornai who

was a Hungarian economist he died about

four years ago who tried to understand

why did the Soviet system fail and why

did American system grow and he came

down to saying that the Soviet system

was constrained by supply you couldn't

get all the input you needed. So, and

you had only, you know, one, there was

no innovation taking place in the Soviet

system. The Chinese system is rampant

with private sector innovation and

companies are competing against each

other rampantly in that system. Somehow

they've managed to combine the state

providing the infrastructure and the

foundation and letting private diversity

occur both between different

corporations and between different

provinces in China. So it is a comp it

is it's the same family of systems but

they've managed to overcome the drawback

that the Soviet system had.

>> Let's accept that at face value. What

about the point I was making about

political freedom, freedom of the

individual, freedom of speech, political

repression of opponents, imprisonment of

people who don't agree, state sanctioned

murder, etc. What about that?

>> Well, I look at America's prison system

and say you've got a different version

of the same poison. I mean, I've been

>> critics of the government on mask.

>> Well, a couple have been shot. The whole

stuff we're doing, the ICE, you know,

and they're talking about the stuff

that's happening with Trump now is

awful. America has the world's largest

prison populations. There are so many

freedoms you don't get in America that

you do get in China.

>> Would you prefer a Chinese system if you

>> to America? Yes.

>> Even though you can't criticize. I've

spent enough time in American cities and

Chinese cities to know which ones I

prefer. And I'm down to cities of a mere

4 million people, which is a small city

on Chinese standards. I didn't see the

homelessness. I didn't see the poverty

levels and that I see in American cities

in Chinese cities.

>> That's totally true. But but it's

exactly the sort of thing that people

would have said about aspects of the

Soviet Union and

>> the Soviet never pulled that off. I mean

the Soviet one thing.

>> What about the Moscow Metro? This is

what every

>> Moscow metro is, you know, great. Every

western idiot like Tucker Carson goes to

to Moscow and says

>> he raves about the underground.

>> Oh my god, the underground. Well, that

was built by totalitarian dictators with

slave labor. You can get a hell of a lot

done with slave labor and

>> that's being done in China right now,

which has the world's greatest metro

systems and the world's greatest

highspeed rail. So again, your

experience, you know, I'm not Russian. I

wasn't born there. I respect your

experience is very different to what I

had growing up and it's a horrific

society and it led to you know a whole

range of horrors as we know the people

things instantly say what happened in

Soviet Union is happening in China

>> is misidentifying those two systems

>> well first of all what happened in China

if you take the entire history of China

under communism is actually much worse

than what happened in the Soviet Union

>> uh well like I was in there in 818

>> 45 million people killed