The Liberal World Order is OVER. Here’s Why | Aaron Bastani meets Anne Applebaum

Intro the reason that I know how Putin came to power and the reason that I know what our role was are broadly meaning us Western Democratic societies is that the Russian opposition explained it to me um so they followed this for many years uh that the they would say well you you people you talk about human rights why do you let Russian oligarchs hide their money in London you know why do you let them buy property using Anonymous companies and uh you know and and shell companies why you know why have you created these tax Havens that they can steal money from the Russian State and and hide it there we were absolutely responsible for that and we've been responsible for the rise of cryptocracy Elsewhere as [Music] well we live in a multi-polar world we live in a world where power whether it's economic political cultural is seeping away from the United States and moving elsewhere where is it going primarily China southeast Asia Russia other parts of the world too and today's guest has some issues with that they're particularly concerned about the rise of an autocratic International as they call it autocracy Inc that's a set of countries which are intent on Crafting a different kind of Global Order and all while trying to undermine democratic values and Norms but perhaps ironically using a Global Financial architecture built by the West they embezzle money and enrich themselves using the apparatus the assets the processes the institutions of places just like the United Kingdom now you know my views on multipolarity I think it's generally a good thing of course not everyone agrees so that's why we're having this conversation and apple bam welcome to down street thanks for having me I think you are the first winner of the pullet surprise to join us I think I think we've had Francis fukiyama he's won some prizes he's I don't think he's not won a Nobel no of course he's not no no no I'm sure he's won more prizes than me you know pul is pretty big deal uh we are talking today about your new book autocracy Inc the dictators who want to run the world uh it looks bigger than it is it's only 176 pages I think um a real intervention into ongoing contemporary political debates very quickly let's start with the basics what is autocracy Inc so the book describes a network of What is Autocracy Inc? dictatorships who a group of it's It's a narrow group it does not include all dictatorships But it includes a particular group who are not bound by ideology they don't share a single idea that makes them different from alliances of the past so we're talking about communist China nationalist Russia theoc ratic Iran bolivarian socialist Venezuela uh you know a handful of others North Korea um and and and others who have begun to cooperate where it suits them uh transactionally and you know when at the moments where when it's in their interests and they have they have they share surveillance technology they share common tactics of repression against dissidents uh they they the the state or quasi State companies of one country invest in the state or quasi State companies of another and they've also begun to support one another to keep one another in power the one thing that unifies them is their dislike of us and by us I mean you and me and probably most the people listening uh to your program uh people who believe in it's not even about democracy it's about liberal societ checks and balances transparency the rule of law because those ideas threaten their particular form of power and also those ideas are often the ideas that are used by their opposition movements so that whether it's the Iranian women's movement or whether it's the Hong Kong Democratic movement or whether it's the navali movement in Russia that's those are the ideas that they espouse and so they have begun to push back against these ideas wherever they are inside their own countries and around the world and the book just describes that group how it came to be um what role the the American and European and the de Democratic World more broadly played in creating it and some initial early thoughts about how to fight back on Putin's anti-liberalism in particular I mean that is a very sort of Putin and Russia incontrovertible quite conspicuous M part of his politics but it wasn't always th you know in the early 21st century he was viewed as a effectively a a liberal Helmsman for post yelt in post transition Russia right so I never thought that I know you think well that's that's the question how how deep does the anti-liberalism for somebody like Putin go because I would look at Putin as really a reactionary political figure in so much as he believes in pre- liberal political ideas you're just saying it's actually about expediency and self-interest and if tomorrow he needs to say something else to maximize his interests he would I mean I think you know people can have more than one idea or more than one motivation I mean I think Putin is motivated simultaneously by some weird mystical thing about recreating the Russian Empire I think that's true uh I think he's very profoundly motivated by the desire to stay in power indefinitely uh I think he's motivated by the desire to keep his money whereever it is and for the people around him to keep their money um and I think he's motivated by profound resentment of the Democratic world that robbed him of his career as a as a as a KGB officer so you know all those and all those things add up I I mean I do think that from the 90s he was somebody who never accepted or believed in uh you know certainly liberal politics I mean he he went along for a long time with the idea that Russia could trade with the west and that would be okay and there could be some degree of integration but really from the moment he had power in Russia the very very first things he did was begin to shut down the media take you know re re take Rec control Civil Society create fake political parties and so on I mean he had a he had an illiberal agenda from the early 2000s it's just that we chose not to notice it so the counter argument with Putin is that he is a reflection of um a Russian political uh class uh which is effectively anti-liberal or or has an aversion to political social liberalism you look at the other parties in the Russian dumer I mean that's just quite that's quite obvious so what do you make of that argument where people say that actually Putin is an expression of something more profound there are people worse than him in Russian politics it's not defensive Putin but there are people that are even more reactionary than he is whereas you would say he's a sort of or I presume you would sort of say he's the sort of typical archetypal autocrat dictator that we see from the 20th Cent Century a strong man no I don't think he's a 20th century strong man I think he's different actually I think the 21st century is different I think the money makes it different the way they behave the access they have to international finance I think the 21st century autocrats are a little are are a little different um again I think I'm not sure I'm going to disagree with you I mean he he he represents a class of people who are all very wealthy and seek to maintain their power um they have convinced large part of the Russian population to stay out of politics uh so he doesn't have significant dissent in the old way that we would think of it although I would you know remember that there is no such thing as a Public Square in Russia or open debate so we don't really know what people think there's not people don't have political ideas that they share and so on so so that's different and you know and then I think at the same time he's uh you know he's he's he he represents his you know his group of uh of of you know not all of them but very often X KGB um people who were young when the Soviet Union broke up and he also has some of his own some of his own interests as well are we partly to blame for for Putin in terms absolutely we're partly to blame okay go on that's one there's a chapter in the book about how we're to blame for Putin yeah no I mean I think the the enable you know it's funny the the and the Reason by the way the the the the reason that I know how Putin came to power and the reason that I know what our role was our broadly meaning us Western Democratic societies is that the Russian opposition explained it to me um so they followed this for many years uh that the they would say well you you people you talk about human rights why do you let Russian oligarchs hide their money in London you know why do you let them buy property using Anonymous companies and uh you know and and shell companies why you know why have you created these tax Havens that they can steal money from the Russian State and and hide it there um Putin's career begins in the 90s and this is a very famous story it's been told by multiple people and there's sort of three or four books about Putin that explain this um one very good one by British journalist Katherine Belton but others by Masha gesson and others uh that describe how in this as early as the early 90s Putin in his role as deputy mayor of St Petersburg was already involved in essentially I mean I'm I'm making it I'm simplifying a bit but essentially taking money from the Russian State taking it out of the country laundering it abroad keeping it some of it abroad and bringing some of it back and then using it to buy property and make investments and so on so he he was very interested in becoming rich from very early and he was typical of a whole class of people who were doing that and when you look at his personal history when you look at the some of the business deals that he was involved in to the extent that we know about it we of course don't know about everything um he very often had Western Partners you know there was a Luxembourg partner there was a there have been several German Partners there were certainly lawyers and accountants who helped him in this project and and and people like him I mean he's part of a he's part of a class and we enabled this essentially theft you know and the and money laundering and we enabled the rise of the oligarchy that became the Russian State and now is essentially this one I it's not really a oneman show that's the wrong way to put it it's a it's it's a hierarchy it's a kind of spider web and he managed to end up at the middle of it um but no we we were absolutely responsible for that and we've been responsible for the rise of kleptocracy Elsewhere as well so I I you know I don't um it wouldn't have been possible without you know Deutsche Bank and and and a whole series of financial institutions and enablers it's also recent as well I mean obviously you have the World Cup in Russia in like 2018 which is just insane now to think about it's four years after crime and I remember a flurry of stories in the early 2010s you would regularly read about killings of Russians with tier one visas in London and nobody really talked about it very much it wasn't like a thing but now on reflection it was actually quite a significant moment there used to be this phrase in US politics this soft bigotry of low expectations you know it was this we we thought so little of the Russians that when they killed each other in London it was kind of like oh that's just what Russians do you know but actually I mean there were people committing crimes on British soil these were actual murders um in one case the famously they brought uh you know radioactive poison into the country and left traces of it all over Mayfair um and we still didn't take it seriously enough I mean we we we saw these as weird one-off stories and not something that was deeper and more you know more symptomatic I mean this was this was already a decade ago more really it was already a regime that was scornful of our laws and and even the idea of the rule of law and was already seeking to undermine it you know the the the point was to show we don't care about your laws and your rules we can do whatever we want and in my view and this is this is not just a Russian thing I mean it's you know these are this is a class of dictators who can do whatever they want inside their own countries and increasingly they want to show and we can do whatever we want anywhere else and they you know and in order to do that they need to show that that the the the slogans that we use and the institutions that we've created and even some of the institutions we've jointly created like the United n Nations I mean the UN Charter says you can't invade Sovereign countries you know you can't change of borders by force and the Russians signed up to the UN Charter and so did everybody else um but increasingly they seek to show that those don't apply to them and that sovereignty means they get to do whatever they want I suppose a left wink you talks about our um our partial culpability with the rise of Putin a sort of left-wing sympathetic to Russia not Putin sort of standpoint would be that's all true totally agree we've ended up in the same place with regards to tax Havens tax evasion fantastic oligarchs um however what about the transition of the early 1990s where we saw median life expectancy for the average not just Russian Ukrainian Belarusian ac across that part of the World full lots of excess deaths although we don't quite know how many is that famous Lancet study but I think five or six million I mean but again that's you can only ever speculate about that stuff the point is that the nature of the transition necessarily somebody on the left might say necessarily led to oligarchs and actually there was a there was a momentous historical opportunity to integrate Russia into the broader European architecture militarily economically and we completely screwed it up I mean what what do you make of that argument so you know I was there for a lot of this time and I watched this process happening and and first of all remember that there were similar there was a similar kinds of transitions happening in Poland in the Czech Republic you know elsewhere uh in the Baltic states uh and those transitions we now consider to have been successful so the problem wasn't the idea of transition um the problem was who carried it out and with what motivations and one of the things that happened in the post-soviet world with the partial exception of the Baltic states although there were some you know there's a lot of um Financial crime in some of them as well um you you had you immediately had the process hijacked I mean the you know in essence and this has also been this is not my reporting this is many other people in essence the the Russian Security State Was preparing for that transition as early as the 80s you know was already beginning to can you put a year on that because that's a that's really interesting like the early 80s mid 80s or mid 80s mid to late I mean really as soon as gorbachov appears you have maybe even earlier than that I mean I I couldn't give you I couldn't give you a precise date but they are already beginning to think about they're already setting up shell compan companes some of it by the way was to do with organizing payments for terrorism I mean there were you know there was a there was a department in the KGB that did money laundering I mean essentially they had they were funding terrorist movements around the world and so on and they need they so they there were people who knew about money and they already begin setting up companies in the late 80s and they already begin thinking about how they're going to what's going to happen afterwards um and you know there's a there's there's an argument that says you know we are we tend to look at the world as if we were at the center of it so we look at the Russian transition and I'm as guilty of this as anybody else at the time we looked at it as you know how did we fail what did you know these were our ideas and somehow they went wrong and the sto we Al we told the story of the Russian transition as if it was a kind of a story of failed democracy like they were trying to get to democracy but they didn't make it and we told it in that in that frame you know what if that's not what happened you know maybe what happened was a very clever well-prepared group of former KGB and former Communist party and in some cases former commo um uh uh people you know in very well prepared you know methodically took over the Russian State and made it into what it is and the story is their march to power not the I don't know the Harvard economists or whoever it was who you think were trying to run things in the 1990s it was actually about the the Takeover of the state that was happening while we were attention to other things that's actually what I now think happened I think the um you know the you there were a lot of you know lot of nuances you know there yelton I think was a well-meaning president who did hope for to be a different kind of Russia I knew many Russians I worked with a lot of them who wanted a different kind of Russia there were many people who believed that the integration with the West would be good for Russia and they wanted what we wanted they hoped that economic integration would bring political integration and that you know would bring democracy I mean there were there were people who worked for that um but I think they weren't the main story I think the main story was this business story well business is the wrong word for it but the main story was the Takeover of the institutions by um by it's hard to say there wasn't necessarily leaders of the former regime it was it was people who were thinking about how they were going to make money in this new situation because I suppose again coming at it from the left you Poland’s Success could look at russer and say missed opportunity it could have looked more like the transition of the D right so you have yeah but the transition of the DDR had the benefit of this massive subsidy from West Germany and you could you know not everybody in the DDR was all that happy either I mean I think the most successful transition you know maybe I would say this because I Liv there part of the time but if you look at Poland if you again you look at the Baltic states Poland you look at the Czech Republic you know you know those were also those were countries where you had motivated political class whose dream was what they would have described at the time they would say we want to be normal and what normal meant was integrated with Europe social market economy European Union NATO they wanted to be like everybody else they knew who lived in Western Europe and that was their goal and the Russians did not have that as a goal and actually initially the ukrainians didn't either what's the secret source for Poland because I went there the first time a couple of years ago and I was shocked at the development and wealth particularly of major cities in the west of Poland I mean that's always been comparatively wealthier but compared to medium-sized cities in this country country places like roslov are really doing well and I don't think Brits realized that so yeah what's the secret Source there well I first just to be clear to your listeners my husband is a Polish politician so take everything I say with a grain of salt um I have you know lived there on and off for 30 years but I I I think part of it is part of it is that the polls in the way that the old you know the younger echelons of the KGB were preparing for the transition you know by preparing to steal a lot of money there was a cohort uh of people in Poland also in the80s who were preparing to think differently about Poland I mean they actually had some of the economists who wound up leading the transition were already writing papers about how to do it in you know in the 80s there was a cohort of politicians who had some legitimacy who'd been opposition leaders for a long time so there was a group of people who in the 9s had a very as I said they had this very clear idea and a kind of clear direction of of where to go and then I think a lot of Poland's success has also been from the EU I mean it first NATO membership which gave investors the idea that this is a stable country then EU membership which meant you could you know invest in Poland as if it were Germany or France and you'd had some you know some reassurance that EU law would would protect you I mean I think that brought in investment but it also gave polls confidence so there's you know this this Poland is also I think just big enough so Poland has its own entrepreneurs and its own companies you know a lot I we know people who have had no money 30 years ago but who have made money by doing something in Poland and so there was a there was a strong enough economy and then and that sort of lifted it didn't lift everybody but I I mean almost you could say I I don't think there's anybody in Poland now who's worse off certain than their grandparents and probably their parents I mean it's a you've had a national gain in wealth that's been pretty Universal yeah I mean there's some Nostalgia for the past in in ponent like any country well well Nostalgia well that's different subject I mean subject of my previous book in fact um Nostalgia is something that you get in almost anywhere where you have very rapid change this is a this conclusion I came to because I tried to understand nostalgia in Britain nostalgia in Poland Nostalgia the United States and you know very different countries completely different histories in it you had the very similar forms of nostalgia for some imag and traditional past and so on um and the more I read about it and talk to people and you the more I think it's really uh any time in history when you have very very rapid change of any change for the good change for the bad you know when you have and and and think what we've had in the last two or three decades you know the social changes demographic change economic change the change in the nature of information you know the way in which we understand the world is completely different now even than it was 10 years ago you have people for whom the the caffin you know and the speed are too much and you know Nostalgia is a kind of natural reaction I mean there and there are different versions of it there's the British Nostalgia for the countryside there's a Polish Nostalgia you know you know for the for the the small town that I grew up in where everybody went to church on Sunday and everyone knew everyone else and it was a real community and you know people who have that Nostalgia and who think that Community has lost are not wrong like that town that you grew up in where everybody went to church and knew everybody else is probably gone or it's different or people have left and moved to Warsaw or they've moved to London or the factory that everyone worked at you know broke up and now there are these little you know small workshops that don't build the same kind of community I mean there's a there has been real change and so they're not wrong there has been real change um and it seems to me that it's the job of whatever you want to call them Centrist liberal center-left Democratic politicians to find a way of giving people like that a sense of stability and of a future um because there is a when you have rapid change you have I think a feeling of loss I mean if you look at the 19th century if you look at the Industrial Revolution you get the same same kind of thing I mean when I was in Poland a couple of years ago it was interesting talking to people on the left like rasm and so on and I'm coming from the UK where we've had 15 years of frankly decline inertia stagnation and I'm you know I'm like you have a profoundly different political set of circumstances here like really let's be objectively fair you've never had it so good whereas in Britain there's a very visceral decline um back to the book you write this sentence actually it's quite gripping it's right at the end I'm thinking why is it not at the beginning you explicitly say quote The End of the Liberal World Order there is no liberal World Order anymore it's quite a striking thing to say when did did that happen I mean you could argue there never was I mean it's always been a um a partial fiction not fiction is the wrong word it's been an aspiration you know the idea that there was some kind of World Order and there was a set of international laws that we all obeyed and there were International institutions that had some power I mean that's been more true at times than others and of course it's one of the things that's always sort of honored in the breach I mean people notice it when it's being at I mean there there is a there is a un convention on genocide and that didn't stop the genocide in Rwanda did it you know and there are un and other International laws against torture and that didn't stop either the Vietnamese torturing Americans nor did it stop Americans torturing Iraqis you know so you know so so so it's it's it's always been a little you know aspirational I think the the the change of the last several years probably in the last decade has been the more erted attempt starting with the Chinese actually um but now now now the Russians the Iranians and others to not just to kind of hedge it or you know ignore it you know you know but really to undermine those institutions and those rules and so you know the Chinese have a specific policy in the UN to quash conversations about human rights you know they don't want anyone to talk about the Wagers anywhere in any un building and they will try and disrupt it if anybody does and you know they don't want there to be any International formal or informal inquiries into anything that they do um and they they are actually trying to remove the language of human rights from International documents and replace it though you know they like there's other phrases they like to use and one of them is win-win cooperation which who's against that nobody win-win cooperation means you know what they mean it to mean is that you don't criticize us and we don't criticize you so you don't notice you know whatever we've done and and we you know and we all just do business and and and that's it and that's that's and they would prefer that they don't they want to talk about that and not human rights they also use the word sovereignty in a particular way uh and sovereignty means again we get to decide how we rule our country and we nobody else gets to have anything to say about it you know um and then as I said increasingly that means to Putin has taken taken another step further sovereignty means I get to who I want and you can't stop me and there's no rule there's no rule that says I can't control my neighbors CU I have sovereignty and Ukraine doesn't I mean he's almost said more or less that what you think Putin wants in Ukraine oh he wants to occupy Ukraine destroy it as a country root out the idea of Ukrainian maybe even maybe I mean you know you can look at what he's done on occupied Ukrainian territory they set up concentration camps they do Mass arrests they kidnap children they deport them to Russia they change their identities they erase the use of the Ukrainian language they destroy Ukrainian books they remove Ukrainian history from schools and universities I mean there this is a you know the word genocide is now so overused that I'm even hesitant to use it but I mean this is this is a this is this this is this is their goal it's the Eraser of Ukraine as a nation and and that's always been his goal I think I mean but that sort of going back to my point a few moments ago I mean that gets the point which is looking at this purely as and I I agree that many of these relationships Venezuela Iran Russia clearly quite transactional but then it does seem to me that Putin February my goodness febru 2022 made a calculated Choice which is I'm perfectly happy for Russia to be a poorer country less integrated with the world economy because of this ideological desire I'm not saying they have no ideology I'm saying they don't share an ideology I mean the Iranians have an ideology you know the the the you know the ideology of Islamic Jihad is very very real and they believe it do you think the is Iranians are jihadists the Islamic Republic of Iran well Jihad sorry that's probably the wrong word in this in this context but I mean they well what they believe I mean they believe that um they a theocracy they believe and they believe in spreading it they believe that the you know as many nations as possible should be subject to similar kind of law I mean they it's a revolutionary Islamic State Jihad is the wrong word sorry that's no it's F I'm half Iranian so I'm quite on top of the on the language um but yeah mean I think lots of people maybe watching this don't know it's Shia country not Sun Etc right right um yeah I that that that to me is is probable and there's something I certainly missed on the left because I'm and again you know there's parts that I actually agree with lots of the prognosis but I disagree with a lot of not a lot some of the diagnosis because I I am a ququ realist which I mean you're odds that and I I'm a realist yeah but so we'll talk about this more but you know um the title of the is and it's really worth reading dictators who wants to run uh Run the World autocracy Inc and I would sort of translate it as almost here's why sanctions no longer work against Russia Iran Venezuela why they why decoupling won't work with China like this this old Paradigm won't work that's how I would almost rename it because that's I'd say that's a narrow inter because they've created an alternative globalization which they want to make auring to the South that does seem like a really existential challenge to the West it's one it's one it is no I think you're right that's one of the things they're doing one I mean and but it's they're doing it as a reaction to us because they see the um you know they as I said they see the language and values and ideas that we use sometimes thoughtlessly and not very seriously but they see them as a threat and so they're trying to create a world in which those ideas don't apply and so what bothers them human rights bothers them a lot you know the rule of law bothers them a lot uh transparency bothers them a lot um accountability um the ideas of uh you know constitutional law you know and freedom of speech all those things bother them a lot and so they would like to create a world in which those things aren't part of international institutions and agreements which they are now and have been since the second world war and in which they don't apply and so they are you know that's that's the that is the that's the alternate global view that's that's what they mean when they talk about multipolarity which is a strange word that has different meanings that's what they mean when they talk about well that's what they would like the global South to be part of I don't think the global South necessarily wants to be part of that and also I hate the expression Global South but well it's the word Now isn't it I mean it's you know underdeveloped or developing world you know it's yeah but I mean it lumps like South Africa and Ecuador and you know with Zimbabwe I mean those are such different places but yeah um I suppose go sticking to that word of What is Multi-Polarity multipolarity this is what I mean when I say I'm a realist so I would I would look at multipolarity and just say well look this is a this is a geopolitical fact you're seeing economic and political power seep away and America probably still will remain the world's Hedon for this Century but you can still be the hedgemon and power seep away from you and it's seeping towards not just China India but aan and all sorts of places West Asia Etc um and I would look at that as just a simple geopolitical fact whereas it seems to me in the book there's a project which says well actually that doesn't have to happen so let me parse that a little bit so the word multipolarity can mean what you just said it means it means that lots of other countries have power and that is objectively true and I mean and you can use the word that way I mean I have a quote in the book actually from I think one the UN Secretary General saying something about we live in a multipler world of course we do you know that's kind of indisputable when the Russians and the Venezuelans and and and others who are part of this particular use it they mean something different um they mean as I said it's a world in which our rules apply and those old rules don't so what they're interested in is a is a world a world where the idea of Human Rights is is a is a western you know imperialist term and you know in our in our nations with with our traditional cultures we don't have rights and that's what they want to establish and so you know so they're trying to establish kind of alternate way of speaking about the world and they I mean they say this periodically so I mean again I I can't quote off the top of my head but in the book I have quotes from um you know from Putin from shei and others more or less saying that you know this is a this is an alternate view of the world and but that's what they mean they mean it's a world without rights it's a world without the rule of law it's a world where might makes right and the biggest countries get to invade little ones and that's and that's that's the that's that's what they're trying to establish you know Putin's I mean I actually think the the Putin's invasion of Ukraine starting in which began of course in 2014 and continued in 2022 was his way what he intended it to be partly I me you asked before what it was partly it's the destruction of Ukraine but he also intended it as a way of saying I don't care about your rules I don't care about the UN Charter which says you know countries have the right to sovereignty um I don't care about your human rights I don't care about this idea of never again you know this European Mantra that after the war we'll never have mass murder in Europe again I don't care about any of that I'm going to do it and I'm going to show you I don't care about it and what he thought was that nobody would respond you know that because he he believed as as the Russian dissident said to me 20 years ago that we talk a lot about human rights but we don't back it up and um and that he was going to be able to do what he wants so that was an attempt to establish his version of multipolarity which is I get to say what the rules are I mean going back to that that realist point I mean I suppose and it was a blind spot for for me as somebody on the left I simply as a quot quote realist I simply didn't think that Putin would invade a country like that in in a very not even a 20th century fashion a 19th century he did it already in 2014 I know but it was just it was just so out I mean you know um GDP is it's by PPP very large economy like a you know maybe fifth largest economy in the world by PPP at the time just so integrated oil exports to Europe it just struck me as so utterly insane and actually sometimes it's important for people on the left to say you know what we got that quite badly wrong I simply didn't think it I thought what I thought would happen is there would just be this permanent Gray Zone conflict in eastern Ukraine they'll nibble nibble nibble they'll keep on changing the regime in ke until they get the guy they like you know I mean that's what I thought quas like that's to be fair that's what they wanted right I mean that was the original idea yeah that was the plan Little Green Men yeah Little Green Men also influencing Ukraine in different ways through propaganda through money through influence through political games I mean that was their game for for for a long time they wanted to control Ukraine you know so that that was the idea but see it seems to me that you and this was not a left-wing problem this was a all whole society all political Spectrum problem is that all of us have accepted our you know our own logic so in our minds government is to the point of government is to create Prosperity right and to make people our country wealthier and to and and and government should be about enriching people not maybe not even just financially but in many ways and in Putin's mind that is not the point of government and that's why he was so hard to understand you know in his mind the point of government is his personal Glory as I said we I've said this already protecting his money etc etc and I think that's what he has in common for example with she you know she's a little different because I think he thinks his power also and His glory depend on China being a rich country and eventually being the richest country but does he care about you know the individual fate of particular people no he does not nor does nor ises Putin nor to the leaders of Iran that's not what they're that's not what they are that's not the purpose of government and all of us think you know I I have a funny memory of I can't remember now which UK election it was where I noticed that there was some kind of back and forth dispute about whether taxes were going to be 1% or 2% higher you know there's somebody some angry I can't remember at Milan David Cameron it's lost in a it's lost in a fog they look the same they no no but I remember thinking you know what a lucky country you know in which that's what politics is is the you know the tax rate going to go up 1% or 2% because you know because everybody assumes that the point of government is well-being and we're arguing about the size of the budget and the size of the welfare state but not the point of government for um for for many autocrats as I said and and so it's hard for us to see their point of view because it's so alien to ours whether we're leftwing or rightwing one of the Misinformation & the Media key parts of the book is this idea that this um you call it autocracy Inc but let's call it autocratic International counter globalization sort of movement um one of the things they do is is misinformation and I think that's un that's obviously undeniable with regards to someone like Russia I'm a a bit more sympathetic to the Chinese argument than you are I think U sympathetic is not the right word I just don't think they're in a league with Russia but reading this obviously there's there's a case that disagrees with that um but uh the misinformation argument also has some interesting counter arguments it was in the Ft weekend you wrote an article for the um the supplement the cover story uh over the weekend in the Ft magazine I don't know if it was a response to you or if it just happens to be a coincidence there wasn't article saying actually the obsession with misinformation in Western Democratic states is more dangerous to democracy than the idea of misinformation and it was a study that pulled up the fact that I think 6% of news sites in the US election in 2016 that people were you know using on mass were misinformation websites and then when you ask the average American they say they don't trust 65% of the news they get so there's this big asymmetry between actually how much misinformation is out there there's a lot you can't dismiss it but actually by talking about misinformation so incessantly we build in a cynicism and nihilism into even the possibility of a of a meaningful public sphere what' you make of the argument so that's that's that's a fair argument stipulate I did not read the article and I didn't think it was a response to me I doubt it my article was about was about cryptocracy but um it was really nicely timed though I didn't I didn't I did not I didn't manage to read it I'll now rush home and do it though um uh so couple of things I mean one is that remember that there are actors in all of our countries actually but certainly in the United States some very powerful ones who are actively and openly trying to convince people that they're being lied to so this was actually Trump's even before Donald Trump was a political candidate when he was still a tabloid guy in New York um he understood the power of undermining so-called mainstream media you know even this expression mainstream media um was invented by people who didn't want you to read or trust mainstream media so the idea of building TR mistrust convincing people not to trust anything whether it's the BBC or whether it's the um you know or whether it's the the NHS building in mistrust is a is a deliberate political tactic and it's been around I'm not sure that you can blame the sense that we're being like to on people who've studied misinformation which is I don't know 17 academics and five journalists at you know you know in a few different places um you know I I would say the the rise of mistrust has a much deeper and um you know more I mean it's been much more deliberate I mean mistrust has been deliberately cultivated by people who have political goals uh so so you know I I I would just I don't think you're wrong that there's very high levels of mistrust but I'm not sure that the the reason is that people talk about misinformation yeah okay I mean we'll par we'll park that it's an interesting conversation I suppose building on that I mean there's an argument to say that and by the way I'm a huge fan of the BBC BBC Radio for I love it me too it's a great it's very it's very good I think BBC Radio 4 is in a different League to BBC TV but um there is an argument that people are right to mistrust parts of the media if you look at recent experiences so of course the Iraq war is one example um but a more recent example in this country is that after 2010 all the major political parties um and the media B into this idea of austerity right and on reflection now 14 years later the entire political class is going that's kind of a mistake actually we kind of we we overcooked it and I and I think lots of people would reflect on the media demonizing people on for instance you know welfare rather than having a a technical sensible conversation about deficits and saying well actually you know they screwed up and we're paying the price of the country surely there's a difference between kind of group think and people making making the wrong analysis of the economy you know or you know no you know part this why my dislike is not of not of the BBC my dislike is of Economics you know because economics purports to be a science that can predict the future and that gives econom you know but of course they're you know it's not and so they they miss you know there was a misanalysis it wasn't misinformation it was a it was a wrong analysis I mean or it can be it could have been a wrong analysis and there's a difference between that and people who deliberately scam viewers and create false stories or false narratives and repeatedly try to you know you know um pump them into the ether I mean that's a that doesn't seem to meet comparable problems I mean you can say the political class got this or that analysis wrong or they made this or that wrong decision and people were wrong to support it um you know you could you could you could look back at many points in history and say that you know maybe World War I was a mistake I mean you know you could um but that's different from the the the combination some of them are political opportunists and some of them are just grifters because you can make money on misinformation you know so there's difference between that and the people who deliberately create misinformation to fool people I think that's true but I think in the last certainly in my lifetime more people are ATT tuned to this side and you put it perfectly of group think within the media and it's particularly problematic in this country because at least in the US you've got the LA people the New York people the Texas people the Chicago people in this country everybody's in London and so I do think the British media and political class is is almost uniquely disposed to group think actually and we saw that with brexit right they had there was very little recognition of actually How likely it was um if you looked at the polling it was highly plausible actually if you if you I predicted it well there you go uh no but I mean okay that but you know you're a political scientist here's here's where it gets interesting because you know in most professions if you're right when everyone else is wrong great job whereas in journalism all the incentives work against you breaking with the herd you don't stick your head up because if you do you get shot at do you and I I genuinely think that undermines confidence in the media because so many mistakes in the media and like it's not malevolence it's not misinformation it's group think and I think group think in the last 25 30 years has really really screwed the media maybe although it's funny I mean I've worked in British media as well as us media and um British historically has been so comat you know the you know the guardian versus the telegraph versus I mean you you've had this you've had quite a lot of Divisions it's not like there's no variety or no diversity or no range of views available to people in Britain I mean it's it's a um it's not like it's a uniform uh Society just I'm just thinking about I mean us is bigger it's true and so we have you know we have we have in that sense more variety but but by the standards of of I was about to say small countries but you're not a small country we are not a small country we are no California's got a bigger GDP is fun no mediumsized countries that I mean the UK is pretty has a pretty you know pretty rambunctious I mean you know by comparison I don't know media in the Czech Republic is both which is much smaller of course um is much I mean Britain has a really developed media culture and lots of different kinds of media organizations including this one you know so it's a um I would say it's by by the standards of medium-sized countries in the world not that bad but that's that's my you know distance perspective Elon Musk what should happen to him he's saying some pretty extraordinary things on Twitter so would Elon Musk he should we shut down Twitter should he lose his US citizenship what's the no I don't think he should lose his US citizenship I mean this is a this is maybe a longer conversation for another podcast um but uh you my my view is that we should regulate social media by which I do not mean we should censor it um I think we should give people control of their data we should it it should be there should and this is TE technologically this is possible you should give people control over the algorithms that are used so that they have some say in what it is that they're seeing at the very least um uh I think there should be more you it may have to involve government it may have to involve other kinds of efforts but there should be a lot more creative thinking about how to have online political conversations in a way that's compatible with democracy um having Rich guys decide what you see um you know and having um you know H you know having algorithms designed essentially to you know to make you angry and and create political division I don't think in the long term is compatible with a society in which we need we know we've always had rules of I mean There are rules of conversation whether we acknowledge them or not right there's rules in a television Studio there are Parliamentary rules of debate you know we've established rules that let people talk that give people you know that that create that are designed to create and encourage balanced conversation that those aren't the rules that exist on social media or the internet more broadly and we we we should begin to think more creatively about how to bring those in and that would be a that's rather than you know we might like the idea of locking Elon Musk up in a you know jail cell on a small desert island but it doesn't seem to me like that's going to solve the problem so I wouldn't I wouldn't be in favor of it well I put that to you because you know you've had the telegra uh the telegram not telegram founder the telegraph um telegram founder that's happened to him yeah although that is not that is not um as I understand it that's not about content moderation that's not because he's promoting some particular ideas that's because his telegram has refused to cooperate with French police on two or three things but mostly it's child pornography and it's uh terrorism recruitment yeah and he simply hasn't they don't respond and they don't they don't cooperate and when they're when they're asked by the police where they're told that there's evidence they don't they don't they don't interact and so that that puts them more in the position really of a bank for example that tolerates the funding of terrorist groups or that tolerates money laundering um so so it's you know it's this is it's not even a speech issue it's not about you know right to speech it's about crime and it may actually be and this I I don't know this is I'm not saying something I know I'm just guessing I mean it may be that um that you know because Twitter has reduced its the the you know the trust and safety part of the team so much that Twitter also runs into problems eventually with on those same kinds of issues um I don't know uh but but it's a you know that there you know you know my my actually my basic argument about the online world is that it should abide by the same laws as the offline world I mean if people were creating child pornography you know across the street from here we would want to stop them right so what's the difference between that and people doing it somewhere on the internet we should it should be the same law um and that that's something I think maybe some governments are finally beginning to grasp or get their minds around yeah I feel like we're hitting an inflection point I mean there's also the Brazil musk story where you know nation states are beginning to get the confidence to say actually you know what you don't you don't operate here we don't want to see that stuff here final question Israel now it's it's talks about it sort of Israel’s Slide Towards Autocracy hinted out in the book and obviously I think this was primarily written in in the maybe the months just immediately following October 7th or just before it it was written it was was 90% of the book was written before I yeah you can you it's and again it's important to say it's um it's a pical Manifesto so you're sort of trying to gesture at things and that's that's just the nature of of a good poic um I hope you don't me saying it's a but that's how it comes across yeah so my worry with Israel is that I it's not an autocracy but I worry it's the future of democracy um and that's because of all the things you've talked about actually it doesn't really believe in in a in a rules based International order look at things like the ICC the icj it believes in might makes right if you look at at its domestic political scene partly is a result of demographics it's moving right um one might argue in the long term against if you look at demographics it's becoming more religious in a way it's moving away from Liberal modernity you know people talk about zionists as this big thing well there's all kinds of zionists you've got the labor Zionist from the 60s to 70s people like benav smotrich are very very diff they're very different so what what do you make of of that argument firstly that actually a country like Israel might not be an autocracy but in some ways it's more concerning for democracies if that's our future so the what you have just said is exactly the argument of the Israeli democracy movement and of the Israeli left I mean this is this is exactly Their Fear I mean if you remember last summer before October the 7th year ago Israel was convulsed by you know these an weekly demonstrations you know huge um you know different kinds of demonstrations actually some of them were on the street some of them were on netanyahu's house um and they were all uh you know and the the argument was is that Israel is at risk risk of becoming a dictatorship that the government is not abiding by the rule of law that it was trying to at that point it was trying to change the judicial system to politicize it make judges more um easier to manipulate I mean all which by the way is a is a pattern of democratic decline that we saw in Hungary we saw in Poland although in Poland it was reversed we saw in Venezuela actually it's not even that different from what Hugo Chavez is this is not a left or rightwing thing um and the and the argument was that that Netanyahu poses this huge Danger to the nature of the Israeli State some partly for some of the reasons that you said I mean they the Israelis talk all the time about demographic change and how it's altering the society and making it less liberal isn't even the word I mean less modern less secular um which is how you know was founded as a secular State and it's and it is less and less that um and the the ministers who you have just named are the ones who are the most objectionable and who who who people are the most upset about so so I you know I don't disagree with that at all I mean I think you know Israel is very much at risk of heading in that direction I mean not just at risk I mean it's already there the risk is the risk is happening um and uh you know and and that's one of the reasons I mean Israel is one of those I I don't think Israel I don't think the situation in the Middle East fits into the Paradigm of my book I mean you can see how the contest of ideas is playing out there but it's it's more it's it's a more complicated Nuance story it's not like there's good guys versus bad guys in that in that same sense there um but but but yes Israel is you know is at risk of becoming it's already in a liberal state in many ways um and it's at risk of not being a democracy and there are many Israelis who know it I mean My worry is because we we've talked about various you know I think Russia's really bad news right I mean at least you can make the argument for the CCP they they help take 700 million Chinese out of poverty in the last like 35 years I think Russia's really really bad news um that's I think quite relatively uncontroversial thing to say but I I think that what's going on right now particularly among Western liberals is they are underpricing the extent to which Israel and its conduct is delegitimizing the Western Democratic Values around the world I think they really are underpricing it and yes and so I just before you sorry interrupt you I don't disagree with you at all I mean I um you know I think it's historic actually what's I think I I agree I also think that I mean and this is in the book actually I also think think that the you know the Russian Chinese Iranian um you know uh sort of information complex is you know is is is is has jumped on that and is pumping it out I mean they you know they see this as a huge win for them I mean it's subjectively and they and you know and that's yeah I mean I think it's more Nuance should be perceived as more Nuance than that but um uh but but but yes you're right I mean I'm not I'm not going to disagree with that analysis but do you think Within foreign policy circles because you you you you you operate you exist in those circles you think that is I exist on the fringes of many circles yeah okay that's fair but do do you think that I mean I my view is there are there are millions tens of millions maybe hundreds of millions of people around the world who you know they're not huge fans of the US they aren't huge fans of Europe but you know what at their best they like those societies they consume their culture they quite like the idea of civil liberties equality under the law etc etc and it it genuinely feels to me that many of those people millions of those people they're looking at the content on social media Etc they look at the likes of Britain the US Etc giving a free pass to Israel and they say actually you know what maybe all that stuff that comes out of the Kremlin or out of Terran about how they don't mean a single word of it actually you know what maybe those people over there are right do you buy that I mean I can see how people would think that um but that doesn't mean they're they're right I mean but do you not think it's it's it feels we're talking about Ukraine that's a hisor I mean is the world that black and white you know you you can you say oh well um if you know if if if you know if the US sees some purpose in protecting Israel from destruction by Iran that that then means that Russia's right to invade Ukraine I mean is it is that is it that unnuanced no no no no and I think you know that you can you could say the US should give you know Iron doome Etc to Israel somebody can make that argument but when you've got this daily barrage of videos and images people people have seen them do you think the US is not trying to stop the war it is it is but it's I don't think it's trying as hard as it could do prec I this is my view precisely because foreign policy circles in Washington Etc are underpricing how much of a blow this is to pres I don't think anybody is underpricing it really I think everybody is perfectly aware yes because it just seems so strange to me a country of 10 million it's a very close Ally for historic and you know all sorts of reasons I get that but it is just such a blow like I said to quote unquote Western values and US Prestige and yet still arming them it just it just seems very strange to me and it it helps all the people you talk about in this book there's no question that that's true I mean I agree with you can we can we end on upbeat notes we can end on an upbeat not yeah what what what's the um what are the things that uh one can do or should be doing in order to stop particular things like misinformation or creep away from democratic Val we talked a little bit about some of it I mean I you know I would and here's where I think there is a left right consensus to be had in fact there's even I even have this thing about there's a there's a there's a there's a pack to be made with greens and people who are interested in climate change as well because um the you know the world's autocracies notably Russia and Iran and Venezuela you know these are also Petro States you know they're they're they you know all of them are um you know they a lot of a lot of the money that that subsidizes autocratic regimes comes from fossil fuels um and it seems to me we have a joint interest in first of all cleaning up our own societies so you know you know why you know we started I said this already why do we need offshore tax Havens why do we need Anonymous companies buying property in London um why can't we as a group of societies put an end to those practices we being America Europe Australia Japan I mean you could you could make it as wide as you want um why don't we as a group of societies think harder about what kind of social media we want not just the kind that Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk invented but you know what are there is there an alternative there's some people experimenting with the Taiwanese think a lot about how we could have online conversations in a way that that's more sensible why can't we why can't we do that um you know and and why you know the and the and the you know the people who are campaigning for climate change should also be campaigning against the Russian invasion of Ukraine Russian invasion of Ukraine would perpetuate this um you know this a state that is utterly dependent and utterly wasteful of um of energy and resources and will do its best to block whatever uh you know whatever Green Revolution there will be I mean it seems to me that there are all kinds of synergies and links that could be made um between people who want to to stop the rise of autocracy Inc and the people who believe in in Progressive politics in lots of different in lots of different other ways I'm very happy we ended there Anna thanks thanks very much for joining us thank you [Music]