#133 — Globalism on the Brink

#133 — Globalism on the Brink

Making Sense with Sam Harris

Sam Harris speaks with Ian Bremmer about the failure of globalism and rise of populism. They discuss immigration, trade, automation, wealth inequality, Trump, identity politics and other topics. If the Making Sense podcast logo in your player is BLACK, you can SUBSCRIBE to gain access to all full-length episodes at samharris.org/subscribe.
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Transcript

SpeakerA
0m 7s
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0m 39s

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.

SpeakerB
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0m 49s

Well, today I'm speaking with Ian Bremer.

SpeakerC
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2m 30s

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.

SpeakerB
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2m 33s

Anyway, I won't belabor the point.

SpeakerC
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3m 20s

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.

SpeakerD
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3m 27s

I am here with Ian Bremer.

SpeakerB
3m 27s
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3m 29s

Ian, thanks for coming on the podcast.

SpeakerE
3m 29s
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3m 30s

Yeah, my pleasure.

SpeakerB
3m 30s
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3m 31s

I'm not sure if you're aware of.

SpeakerD
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3m 34s

This, but I recall meeting you only once.

SpeakerB
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3m 35s

I think we met in the green.

SpeakerD
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3m 37s

Room of some show.

SpeakerB
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3m 42s

I don't know if it was a CNN show or something else. Do you have any recollection of this?

SpeakerD
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3m 45s

This is like probably twelve years ago.

SpeakerF
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3m 56s

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.

SpeakerE
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4m 1s

Room, it was so much less significant than that.

SpeakerF
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4m 4s

It is completely lost from my memory.

SpeakerD
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4m 6s

Well, I've appreciated you from afar as.

SpeakerB
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4m 12s

Well, so it's great to finally meet you virtually and for good reason, because you have a new book, which I'm.

SpeakerD
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4m 13s

Eager to talk about.

SpeakerB
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4m 21s

The book is us versus them, the failure of globalism. This could not be more timely, but before we jump into the book, give.

SpeakerD
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4m 23s

Me your potted biography.

SpeakerB
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4m 26s

How do you describe what it is you do?

SpeakerF
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4m 32s

I'm a political scientist, and I think of myself that way. I was trained out in the west.

SpeakerE
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4m 34s

Coast at Stanford originally, I was kind.

SpeakerF
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4m 42s

Of a post sovietologist. I started working on things former soviet as that country empire was in the.

SpeakerE
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4m 46s

Process of falling apart and speak Russian, and lived out there for a few years.

SpeakerF
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4m 51s

When I finished my phd, I was an academic for a couple of years.

SpeakerE
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4m 54s

And then basically started a company because.

SpeakerF
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4m 60s

There was apparently no company for political scientists. And I really wanted to still be a political scientist.

SpeakerE
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5m 3s

So I've done that for about 20 years now, and we have a couple.

SpeakerF
5m 3s
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5m 8s

Of hundred folks, and we all look at how politics affect the markets all over the world.

SpeakerB
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5m 11s

You've written this book, which doesn't give.

SpeakerD
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5m 13s

Too many causes for optimism, at least.

SpeakerB
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5m 20s

In the near term. Let me see if I can summarize your worries here. You have this argument that those of.

SpeakerD
5m 20s
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5m 25s

Us who have benefited from globalization and are now worried about the rise of.

SpeakerB
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5m 29s

Populism everywhere, need to be very careful.

SpeakerD
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5m 33s

Not to discount the concerns of the people who have voted in the populace.

SpeakerB
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5m 40s

And in our case, who have voted for Trump. And you're making a very detailed case.

SpeakerD
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For the legitimacy of certain concerns about.

SpeakerB
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5m 50s

Trade and immigration, and this general way in which the support for cosmopolitanism and.

SpeakerD
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5m 54s

The celebration of cultural diversity and free.

SpeakerB
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5m 57s

Exchange of goods and ideas that seems.

SpeakerD
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6m 0s

Universally subscribed among wealthy and educated people.

SpeakerB
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6m 2s

At this moment is leading to a.

SpeakerD
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6m 5s

Breakdown of trust and an erosion of.

SpeakerB
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6m 12s

Social capital among people who are less well off. And so people like ourselves mock the.

SpeakerD
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6m 15s

Populace at our peril because there really is something that has to be understood.

SpeakerB
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6m 23s

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.

SpeakerF
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I mean, if you just came down from another planet and showed up in.

SpeakerE
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6m 35s

The United States right now, you would.

SpeakerF
6m 35s
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6m 39s

Certainly think, you turn on the media, you'd think the reason why we have all these problems is because of this.

SpeakerE
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6m 44s

Crazy person called Donald J. Trump. And that's just not true, right?

SpeakerF
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I mean, fundamentally, first of all, there's something that's much broader than just the United States.

SpeakerE
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So you can't look at the solutions.

SpeakerF
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As only being limited to the american president. And much more important than Trump being.

SpeakerE
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7m 4s

Elected is how you got to a place where more people didn't bother to vote than voted for Hillary, or that.

SpeakerF
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7m 11s

So many would have voted for someone who so clearly was incapable, in so.

SpeakerE
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Many ways, of actually leading the country.

SpeakerF
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7m 20s

And absolutely, I believe that there are just way too many people that don't.

SpeakerE
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Believe that there is complicity on the.

SpeakerF
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7m 26s

Part of the globalists over the part.

SpeakerE
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Of the past decades. Myself very much included in being responsible for this problem.

SpeakerB
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Well, let's define a few terms here, because I've used several, which I think.

SpeakerD
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7m 40s

Most people have a vague sense of, but I think very few will have.

SpeakerB
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7m 48s

A precise definition for in their heads. How would you differentiate, for instance, globalism versus globalization?

SpeakerD
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What do those two terms mean?

SpeakerF
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So when I talk about globalists, I'm talking about the jews, right? Kidding.

SpeakerE
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Actually, I'm really not doing that.

SpeakerF
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8m 0s

It's funny how that there have been.

SpeakerE
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Some in the alt right that have.

SpeakerF
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8m 6s

Tried to take that term and make it nefarious.

SpeakerE
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8m 13s

Actually, when I talk about globalism, I'm talking about a philosophy, an ideology that's.

SpeakerF
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8m 16s

Been promoted by elite leaders in the west.

SpeakerE
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8m 31s

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.

SpeakerF
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Way to go, and further, would be the best for all of our citizens.

SpeakerE
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That's globalism. It's really a political ideology where globalization.

SpeakerF
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Is something I'm a huge fan of.

SpeakerE
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8m 47s

That's an economic process that shows that.

SpeakerF
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8m 49s

Bringing goods and services and ideas all.

SpeakerE
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Over the world is going to create.

SpeakerF
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8m 54s

More global wealth and make our lives better.

SpeakerE
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8m 59s

Certainly, if you look at today's planet.

SpeakerF
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9m 6s

And the fact that we have one global middle class, as opposed to a few really rich people and a lot.

SpeakerE
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Of crushingly poor people, that's been a fantastic change.

SpeakerF
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And most of the world is literate today.

SpeakerE
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9m 21s

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.

SpeakerF
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9m 27s

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.

SpeakerE
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9m 32s

That tell that story much more refreshingly than I certainly would.

SpeakerF
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But I'm sadly, a political scientist. I'm not focused on the global economic.

SpeakerE
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9m 44s

Trends or demographic trends. And from the political science perspective, the.

SpeakerF
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9m 50s

Advanced industrial democracies, the liberal democracies that have benefited from promoting globalism in their.

SpeakerE
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9m 54s

Borders, have really failed a lot of their citizens.

SpeakerF
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9m 59s

And we see a lot of structural inequality that's only growing as a consequence of that. And a lot of people that feel.

SpeakerE
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10m 1s

Very displaced

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