
#133 — Globalism on the Brink
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Welcome to the Making Sense podcast. This is Sam Harris. Just a note to say that if you're hearing this, you are not currently on our subscriber feed and will only be hearing the first part of this conversation. In order to access full episodes of the Making Sense podcast, you'll need to subscribe@samharris.org. There you'll find our private RSS feed to add to your favorite podcaster, along with other subscriber only content. We don't run ads on the podcast, and therefore it's made possible entirely through the support of our subscribers. So if you enjoy what we're doing here, please consider becoming one.
Well, today I'm speaking with Ian Bremer.
And it's important to know that we recorded this interview before Trump's recent meeting with Putin. We talk about Trump a little bit here. Not much would change about the conversation, but it's just good to understand why we are apparently oblivious to the recent news from Helsinki, news that seems, to my eye at least, to be every bit as alarming as the alarmists say it is, though unsurprising. It is, of course, no surprise that Trump is sufficiently incompetent and so easily manipulated by his own narcissism and self interest that he could glad hand a tyrant who kills and jails journalists and his own political opponents and take his side in a controversy that is, in fact, no controversy against the unanimous understanding of the intelligence communities of the United States. And we should note that serious people are using the word treason to describe this. I don't think Ian Bremer, today's guest, would be one of them. He would be slow to make that accusation. But it'll be very interesting to see if this is yet another thermonuclear scandal that Trump manages to weather, or if it actually matters. In the end, it really does seem that for 40% of the american population, nothing he can do or say matters. There's no level of incoherency, no level of conflict of interest, no ethical impropriety, nothing that can matter. It's amazing.
Anyway, I won't belabor the point.
Ian Bremer is the president and founder of the Eurasia Group, the leading global political risk research and consulting firm. He has published ten books, including Superpower, the End of the free market, and every nation for itself. He lectures widely and writes a weekly foreign affairs column for Time magazine, where he's the editor at large. And most recently, he's the author of the new book, us versus them the failure of globalism. And that's what we talk about today. We talk about globalism and all of its problems, the attendant rise of populism, issues like immigration and trade, all of these things are all too relevant to our current circumstance. So without further ado, I bring you Ian Bremer.
I am here with Ian Bremer.
Ian, thanks for coming on the podcast.
Yeah, my pleasure.
I'm not sure if you're aware of.
This, but I recall meeting you only once.
I think we met in the green.
Room of some show.
I don't know if it was a CNN show or something else. Do you have any recollection of this?
This is like probably twelve years ago.
I feel like I know you so much better from end of faith and various speeches and such that you've given. So if we met in a green.
Room, it was so much less significant than that.
It is completely lost from my memory.
Well, I've appreciated you from afar as.
Well, so it's great to finally meet you virtually and for good reason, because you have a new book, which I'm.
Eager to talk about.
The book is us versus them, the failure of globalism. This could not be more timely, but before we jump into the book, give.
Me your potted biography.
How do you describe what it is you do?
I'm a political scientist, and I think of myself that way. I was trained out in the west.
Coast at Stanford originally, I was kind.
Of a post sovietologist. I started working on things former soviet as that country empire was in the.
Process of falling apart and speak Russian, and lived out there for a few years.
When I finished my phd, I was an academic for a couple of years.
And then basically started a company because.
There was apparently no company for political scientists. And I really wanted to still be a political scientist.
So I've done that for about 20 years now, and we have a couple.
Of hundred folks, and we all look at how politics affect the markets all over the world.
You've written this book, which doesn't give.
Too many causes for optimism, at least.
In the near term. Let me see if I can summarize your worries here. You have this argument that those of.
Us who have benefited from globalization and are now worried about the rise of.
Populism everywhere, need to be very careful.
Not to discount the concerns of the people who have voted in the populace.
And in our case, who have voted for Trump. And you're making a very detailed case.
For the legitimacy of certain concerns about.
Trade and immigration, and this general way in which the support for cosmopolitanism and.
The celebration of cultural diversity and free.
Exchange of goods and ideas that seems.
Universally subscribed among wealthy and educated people.
At this moment is leading to a.
Breakdown of trust and an erosion of.
Social capital among people who are less well off. And so people like ourselves mock the.
Populace at our peril because there really is something that has to be understood.
Here, and business as usual is not going to serve us well. Is that a fair summary of where your head is at, at the.
I mean, if you just came down from another planet and showed up in.
The United States right now, you would.
Certainly think, you turn on the media, you'd think the reason why we have all these problems is because of this.
Crazy person called Donald J. Trump. And that's just not true, right?
I mean, fundamentally, first of all, there's something that's much broader than just the United States.
So you can't look at the solutions.
As only being limited to the american president. And much more important than Trump being.
Elected is how you got to a place where more people didn't bother to vote than voted for Hillary, or that.
So many would have voted for someone who so clearly was incapable, in so.
Many ways, of actually leading the country.
And absolutely, I believe that there are just way too many people that don't.
Believe that there is complicity on the.
Part of the globalists over the part.
Of the past decades. Myself very much included in being responsible for this problem.
Well, let's define a few terms here, because I've used several, which I think.
Most people have a vague sense of, but I think very few will have.
A precise definition for in their heads. How would you differentiate, for instance, globalism versus globalization?
What do those two terms mean?
So when I talk about globalists, I'm talking about the jews, right? Kidding.
Actually, I'm really not doing that.
It's funny how that there have been.
Some in the alt right that have.
Tried to take that term and make it nefarious.
Actually, when I talk about globalism, I'm talking about a philosophy, an ideology that's.
Been promoted by elite leaders in the west.
So public intellectuals, political leaders, corporate leaders, business leaders, media leaders, that free trade, open borders, and global security provided by the US and our allies was the.
Way to go, and further, would be the best for all of our citizens.
That's globalism. It's really a political ideology where globalization.
Is something I'm a huge fan of.
That's an economic process that shows that.
Bringing goods and services and ideas all.
Over the world is going to create.
More global wealth and make our lives better.
Certainly, if you look at today's planet.
And the fact that we have one global middle class, as opposed to a few really rich people and a lot.
Of crushingly poor people, that's been a fantastic change.
And most of the world is literate today.
And most of the world lives over 70 years of age, and 90% of one year olds get an immunization. And I mean, the world is more.
Free of suffering today than at any point in history. And I know you've talked to Steve Pinker in the past, recently, and others.
That tell that story much more refreshingly than I certainly would.
But I'm sadly, a political scientist. I'm not focused on the global economic.
Trends or demographic trends. And from the political science perspective, the.
Advanced industrial democracies, the liberal democracies that have benefited from promoting globalism in their.
Borders, have really failed a lot of their citizens.
And we see a lot of structural inequality that's only growing as a consequence of that. And a lot of people that feel.
Very displaced
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