0:01

Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Marriott. Town

0:03

Place Suites by Marriott has all the

0:05

comforts of home. Cook up a meal

0:07

in a full kitchen, unpack

0:09

and stay organized with the in-room alpha

0:11

closet system, plus bring your pet and

0:14

have your best friend by your side.

0:16

Town Place Suites by Marriott has all the

0:18

amenities you need to feel at home during

0:20

your stay. Find the comforts of

0:23

home at Town Place Suites. Go

0:25

there with Marriott Bonboy. Freakonomics

0:31

Radio is sponsored by Capital One

0:33

Bank. With no fees or minimums,

0:36

banking with Capital One is the

0:38

easiest decision in the history of

0:40

decisions. Even easier than deciding to

0:42

listen to another episode of your

0:45

favorite podcast. And with no overdraft

0:47

fees, is it even a decision?

0:49

That's banking reimagined. What's in your

0:52

wallet? Terms apply, see capitalone.com/bank, Capital

0:54

One N.A. member FDIC. So

0:58

my sense of reading you

1:00

overall, particularly reading your new

1:03

book, Age of Revolutions, is a sense of

1:05

sadness and surprise that

1:08

the world finds itself today in a

1:10

state of peril, that the powers of

1:12

populism and darkness and closed thinking are

1:14

battling hard and

1:17

maybe winning against what seemed to be the liberal

1:19

trend or a trend toward a new

1:22

world. And I think that's a good thing. What

1:24

seemed to be the liberal trend or

1:26

a trend toward openness and relative peacefulness.

1:28

Is that too dark a read of

1:30

your views? No, I think you

1:32

put it exactly right. It's a sadness. Since

1:35

the fall of the Berlin Wall, it

1:37

seemed as though many of the

1:39

great enlightenment liberal progressive projects in

1:42

the world were moving forward and

1:44

being embraced by people from Eastern

1:46

Europe to Latin America, to Africa,

1:49

opening up, holding elections, many of

1:51

them free and fair. Markets

1:54

that were often closed, opening

1:56

up so that people had many more

1:58

opportunities to move on. up trade

2:01

between countries, growing tourism between countries

2:03

growing and then the information revolution

2:05

which was bringing us all together,

2:07

binding us together. All these

2:10

forces seem to be moving forward. They

2:12

were each reinforcing the other in a

2:14

kind of virtuous cycle. And

2:16

then what we've seen over the last

2:18

10 years is every one of the

2:20

trends I just mentioned has reversed. We

2:22

are in a democratic recession. We

2:25

are in an age of rising trade

2:27

and tariff barriers and protectionism. We

2:29

are in an age where information systems

2:32

that were once open are increasingly

2:34

being cordoned off, monitored, regulated.

2:37

And all of it is fueled

2:39

by a certain degree of popular

2:41

sentiment which says, stop this strain.

2:43

We're moving too fast and I

2:45

need to protect myself. That

2:50

is Farid Zakaria. I host

2:52

a show on CNN, write a column for the

2:54

Washington Post, and write books like

2:56

this one. Today

3:21

on Freakonomics Radio, we talk about why left and right is

3:23

no longer the correct way to think about the political divide.

3:26

We talk about China and Russia, of course. And we talk

3:28

about the world. And

3:51

the new calculus in the Middle East. We

4:00

don't like the fact that Hamas is backed by Iran.

4:02

We also talk about the scarcity of

4:05

moral courage. History is

4:07

complicated. Sometimes the bad guys

4:09

win. Roughly half of

4:11

the world's population live in

4:13

countries that are holding national elections this year. So,

4:16

will things get even more chaotic, or

4:19

will they settle down? You

4:22

probably have some thoughts about this. We

4:24

will hear Farid Zakaria's thoughts beginning

4:27

now. This

4:41

is Freakonomics Radio, a podcast

4:44

that explores the hidden side

4:46

of everything with your host,

4:48

Steven Devner. Can

4:59

you tell me your life story in just

5:01

a couple minutes? A little bit about your upbringing and how

5:03

you got to where you are today? I

5:05

grew up in India in the 70s. I

5:08

managed to get a scholarship to

5:10

Yale and went there, had a

5:13

fantastic time, then got my PhD

5:15

at Harvard in political science and

5:17

international relations. And

5:19

then proceeded to go into the world of

5:21

journalism. With a PhD in Pali

5:23

Sai, did you consider academia at all or

5:25

no? Oh, very much so. In fact, I

5:28

remember very well this moment

5:30

where I was finishing up my PhD.

5:33

I was having lunch in New

5:35

York with Walter Isaacson, who was a senior

5:37

editor at Time. And

5:39

he said to me, there's a job in New

5:41

York managing editor of foreign affairs. You're a little

5:43

young for it, but you should throw your hat

5:45

in the ring. And I said

5:48

to him, Walter, I have no interest in that.

5:50

I think I'm on track to be offered an

5:52

assistant professorship at Harvard. And

5:54

he said to me, I'm talking about the

5:57

managing editor for foreign affairs. And I said,

5:59

yeah, and I'm talking about it. about an assistant professorship

6:01

at Harvard. And it's a wonderful example

6:03

of how you get siloed. Each of

6:05

us thought that what we were talking

6:07

about was a much bigger deal than

6:09

the other person thought. I

6:11

ended up going to foreign affairs. And

6:14

I've always been fascinated by international

6:16

affairs. My mom was a journalist,

6:18

and I think I was 14 years

6:20

old when Henry Kissinger's memoirs came out.

6:23

And I must have read them because I

6:25

remember telling my mom she was

6:27

working at the Times of India, which had accepted

6:29

the memoirs. And I told her,

6:32

you missed a couple of really good

6:34

sections. Now, your father, I understand, was

6:36

a member of the Indian National Congress?

6:38

Correct. He was a member of the

6:40

party that liberated India, gained independence, and

6:42

dominated it for the next 50, 60

6:44

years. I've read

6:46

that he was also an Islamic theologian.

6:48

Is that accurate? No. Wikipedia sometimes gets

6:51

things wrong. And it's particularly on issues

6:53

of Islam. It's an interesting

6:55

flaw in Wikipedia. He was a scholar

6:57

who was interested in Islam. He was

7:00

a completely secular man, but he

7:02

was always very interested and particularly interested

7:04

in the Indian experience. He

7:06

did write a little bit about theology, but

7:08

mostly it was history of India,

7:11

history of Indian Muslims. So

7:13

growing up as a Muslim in India, what share

7:15

of the population was Muslim by that point? It's

7:17

always been somewhere between 10% to 12%, 13%. And

7:22

what was that like for you, just as

7:24

an experience as a young person learning to

7:26

look around the world in a certain way,

7:28

being in a minority in a very, very

7:31

big country like that? When

7:33

I was growing up, I was

7:35

very conscious of being a minority

7:37

in a very secular, pluralistic, and

7:40

diverse country, and a country

7:42

that took enormous pride in the

7:44

fact that it was secular, and

7:47

pluralistic, and diverse. There was an

7:49

extraordinary emphasis that Nehru and Gandhi

7:51

placed, the two founding fathers of

7:53

the Congress Party and Indian independence,

7:56

enormous emphasis that they placed on the idea

7:58

of tolerance and pluralism. secularism

8:02

meaning really that there was no favoritism

8:04

toward one religion or the other. And,

8:06

you know, Nehru, he was India's first

8:08

prime minister, he wouldn't go to openings

8:10

of temples because he felt that that

8:13

would be unfairly putting his thumb on

8:15

the scale of one religion versus another.

8:18

And that was in some ways my father's

8:20

life work. He told me once that the

8:22

most important political choice he ever made was

8:24

when he was 13 or 14

8:26

as a young Indian Muslim in the 30s where

8:29

he chose Nehru's vision

8:31

of secular nationalism rather than

8:34

Jinnah's vision of religious nationalism.

8:36

He was very committed to a

8:38

secular India and a pluralistic India.

8:41

So for me growing up there was a

8:43

lot of pride in that version of the

8:45

polity of Indian civil society. You

8:48

were conscious you were a minority. So my father

8:50

was conscious, for example, that while he was a

8:52

politician he could never be prime minister

8:54

of India. There was always

8:57

that understanding that you were a

8:59

minority. But it was, as

9:01

I say, a country that he took enormous

9:03

pride in. And by the end

9:05

of his life there was a lot of

9:07

sadness about the rise of Hindu nationalism, a

9:09

kind of militant Hindu nationalism that was tearing

9:12

away at the fabric of what

9:14

had kept this country so vibrant

9:16

and admirable for him. You're one

9:18

of the few nationally prominent Muslim

9:21

journalists in the United States. I'm

9:23

curious if you feel that

9:25

places expectations on you when

9:28

talking about important global

9:30

events that involve Muslims, of which there are

9:32

many in the last few decades. What

9:35

I've always tried to do is use

9:37

that background as a way to

9:39

elucidate, to inform, to give my

9:41

viewers and readers a sense that

9:43

I kind of know that world

9:45

and I have an insight into

9:48

it. I really don't

9:50

like identity politics and don't really believe in

9:52

it. So I've very rarely written a column

9:55

or an opening commentary for my show which

9:57

says something like, as a Muslim. as

10:00

an Indian. You say, I

10:02

really don't like identity politics. I think

10:04

that's one of the reasons why I

10:06

like your commentary so much, because what's

10:09

at the core is the actual politics

10:11

and economics and social movements and so

10:13

on. But that said, much

10:15

of the political and social discourse in

10:18

this country and elsewhere these days is

10:20

really rooted in identity politics. And I'd

10:22

like to hear your comment on how

10:24

costly you think that may be. I

10:27

think it comes from a good place in

10:30

some cases. It comes from a sense that

10:32

people's experiences and the history

10:35

of certain communities have not

10:37

been adequately looked at and

10:39

analyzed and honored. And I

10:41

get all that. But I

10:43

think it's fundamentally illiberal, because

10:45

it is fundamentally saying, I

10:47

have this identity and that

10:49

identity trumps everything else, that

10:52

you can't understand what I'm saying.

10:55

And I think that if you make that

10:57

argument, you're essentially making an argument against

11:00

knowledge and certainly against the Enlightenment

11:02

project. The whole point is

11:05

that we can all live together because

11:07

I can understand your circumstances and we

11:09

can come up with solutions and policies

11:11

and legislation that allow us

11:13

to benefit each other and the whole.

11:16

The whole point of great literature is

11:19

that you have the ability to understand

11:21

other people. Shakespeare was not

11:23

Danish, yet he wrote a play

11:25

about a Danish prince. I

11:27

think the whole idea that you cannot understand

11:29

me because your skin color is different or

11:32

because your parents took you to a different

11:34

house of worship when you were young, it

11:37

doesn't to my mind recognize

11:39

that the whole point, certainly

11:41

since the Enlightenment, that we've been moving towards

11:43

is the idea that we can all understand

11:45

each other. Let's go back in

11:47

history a little bit. Let's get a little of the

11:49

flavor of your book. There's one

11:51

history that I found so interesting

11:53

and it may feel banal

11:56

to you, I hope not, but if you would,

11:58

tell us the history. of why today

12:01

many of us still talk about the left and

12:03

the right, where that comes from. That

12:05

was one of the things that I was most

12:07

surprised by and delighted by because it was such

12:10

a wonderful little quirk of

12:12

history. And it turns out to be

12:14

largely accidental, almost architectural. The basic story

12:16

of the French Revolution is the king

12:19

needs to raise taxes and

12:21

calls the National Assembly into session for the first time

12:23

in like 150 years. They meet in this

12:26

semicircular fashion where basically the king sits in

12:28

the front. In front of him are all

12:31

his nobles and the priests and way at

12:33

the back are all the commoners. And

12:36

because the debate gets so furious,

12:39

almost spontaneously the two sides

12:41

ideologically start to sit together.

12:43

One of the people who was

12:45

there at the time, a French nobleman says,

12:47

those of us who wanted to keep the

12:50

present system ended up on the right-hand side

12:52

of the chair and the

12:54

people who wanted to abolish the monarchy

12:56

or who were the radicals ended up

12:58

on the left-hand side. Then this architect,

13:00

Pierre Adrian Paris, is asked to build

13:02

a new home for the National

13:04

Assembly. So they move from Versailles to

13:07

Paris and he finds this long rectangular

13:09

room and they don't have the space

13:11

for a semicircular configuration. So he sets

13:13

it up with what we now think

13:15

of as the kind of British parliamentary

13:17

setup, right where you have the chair

13:20

and then long benches on either side

13:22

facing each other. And what

13:24

ends up happening is all the people who

13:26

want to abolish the monarchy are on the

13:28

left, all the people who want to uphold

13:30

the monarchy are on the right. And

13:33

that is why we talk about left-wingers and

13:35

right-wingers to this day. Most

13:37

of us talk about left-wingers

13:39

and right-wingers, but you have

13:41

moved on. You'd prefer to

13:43

characterize this split really as

13:45

open versus closed. This

13:47

is really the origins of the book,

13:49

where about 10 years ago I began

13:52

to realize that this divide that had

13:54

served us very well analytically in terms

13:56

of understanding politics for at least a

13:58

hundred years was a. No longer

14:00

really valid. It really was left

14:03

right on the economy. The left

14:05

wing wanted more state involvement in

14:07

the economy and more redistribution, and

14:09

the right wanted less state involvement

14:11

in the economy and less redistribution.

14:14

And that's perfectly well explained. Left

14:16

wing vs. Right Wing in the

14:18

United States and Europe in India

14:20

and Brazil. Everywhere. And

14:23

what was increasingly happening was

14:25

said. We were moving into

14:27

a realm of new issues,

14:30

largely. Defined by identity, culture

14:32

and Babs fundamentally determined by

14:34

where you stood on this

14:36

question of do one of

14:39

world of open Economics, open

14:41

politics, open technology, Open culture,

14:43

diversity. Or. Do you want the

14:45

opposite? I remember reading about a very

14:48

good analysis that see the Scotch Ball,

14:50

the legendary social scientists to jail dead

14:52

on the Tea party. She said the

14:54

Tea party presented itself as being kind

14:56

of Libertarian wanting blow government spending. but

14:59

when you talk to them and you

15:01

looked at all the focus groups and

15:03

you looked at how they voted, that

15:05

wasn't a concern. The real concerns were

15:07

called throw it was immigration, it was

15:10

assimilation, was diversity. Was what we would

15:12

now call the Woke Agenda. That

15:14

was really what was animating them.

15:16

And you move to cigarettes like

15:19

Donald Trump. Trump's entire message

15:21

has nothing to do with the old

15:23

Reagan formula of low taxes, balanced budget,

15:25

spread democracy abroad, sped market Soprano. His

15:28

basic message was, the Mexicans are stealing

15:30

your jobs, The Chinese are stealing your

15:32

factories, the Muslims are trying to kill

15:34

you. I'll beat them all up and

15:37

you'll be great again. Threats that has

15:39

nothing to do with Reagan. Sunny, optimistic

15:41

Libertarian vision and watching the change, I

15:43

realize okay, this is new. A lot

15:46

of these people say yeah, the economy's

15:48

doing well, but I hate immigrants. I

15:50

hate what's happening on the border. I hate

15:52

the woke agenda. Those are the driving issues.

15:55

We've always tended to think it's the other

15:57

way around. It's economics is dominant and this

15:59

guy. Rooftop is a little bit of

16:01

fluff and is really inverted. know. What

16:04

is your take on why so

16:06

many people in the Us which

16:08

is a done of Kennedy famously

16:10

called us a nation of immigrants

16:12

have become so hostile to immigration?

16:14

Do you feel it's on the

16:16

merits to some significant degree economically

16:18

and order insecurity and so on?

16:21

Or do you feel it's more

16:23

of their cultural touchstone. It's

16:26

a complicated question. First, I think

16:28

it's important to remember that we

16:30

have the mythology that America has

16:32

always been enormously open to immigrants,

16:34

but the reality is, we have

16:36

always had periods of huge backlash.

16:38

Think about, you know, the know

16:40

nothing party in the nineteenth century

16:42

founded basically to oppose Irish immigration

16:44

and then Italian immigration, the Chinese

16:46

Exclusion Act which is the first

16:48

time we actually ban a certain

16:50

group of be both the quotas

16:53

that will put in place and

16:55

Nineteen Twenty Four. Which are extraordinary.

16:57

It's beyond anything even Trump is

16:59

talking about right now, and that

17:01

lasted till Nineteen Sixty Five. So

17:03

we that long periods of enormous

17:06

open the sword immigration, but long

17:08

periods of enormous hostility. The way

17:10

I think about it is immigration

17:12

is sort of the human face

17:14

of this world of openness that

17:17

I'm describing is something like global

17:19

capital flows is an abstract idea.

17:21

Trade is largely an abstract idea.

17:23

Even open Technology systems is an

17:25

abstract. Idea. But. Human

17:28

beings. Who. Look different.

17:30

Who sound different? Who worship

17:32

different gods? That's visceral and

17:34

so people focus on that.

17:36

Doesn't. seem like a very outdated

17:39

construct though for a civilization it's

17:41

relatively modern because if you think

17:43

about it people moving around the world

17:45

are really not very different than commodities

17:47

and trends and goods and services

17:49

moving around the world so why is

17:52

it so hard for people to accept

17:54

that people are part of the

17:56

economy and people moving is actually the

17:58

opposite of friction actually grease in

18:00

the system. Oh, gosh. I

18:02

mean, of course, I agree with you theoretically,

18:05

but I think it would be missing a

18:07

lot to not understand that that's how human

18:09

beings react. We're tribal and

18:11

we get more tribal when things are

18:13

changing. So you write

18:15

that our times are revolutionary. Wherever

18:17

you look, you see dramatic radical

18:20

change. Elsewhere you write an

18:22

international system that had seemed stable

18:24

and familiar is now changing fast

18:26

with challenges from a rising China

18:29

and a revanchist Russia. What

18:32

is the best evidence that the pace of

18:34

change and the intensity of the change are

18:36

really, as you put it, unrivaled? Because yes,

18:38

life was stable during the Middle Ages and

18:41

no one wants to return to that, but

18:43

in the modern era, the one

18:45

constant has been changed. And so

18:47

is it really that there's more

18:49

change at the moment or is

18:51

it that so many of

18:53

us are kept apprised of every tiny

18:55

piece of change via a

18:58

new constant global digital media

19:00

and therefore we think

19:02

there's more change or even chaos than there

19:04

is plus switch. We all know about this

19:07

negativity bias, which is the human animal

19:10

is more sensitive to bad news than

19:12

to good. So first to just

19:14

take something you said, which is

19:16

very important, which is that information

19:18

technology might itself be accelerating

19:21

our sense of how much this is

19:23

changing, but that's a reality you can't

19:25

get away from. That is part of

19:28

the change that has taken place, this

19:30

explosion in information technology. But let's look

19:32

at the objective data because you're right

19:34

to wonder. If you look at politically,

19:37

as I said, the number of democracies

19:39

has just exploded. And remember, democracy is

19:41

a very new, unwieldy, chaotic form of

19:44

government for most countries that have had

19:46

a very different top down system rather than

19:48

the bottom up one. If you look at

19:50

trade, there was an earlier boast of globalization.

19:53

In fact, probably two, there was one around

19:55

the early to mid 19th century and then

19:57

one that takes place sort of in the.

20:00

It's the 50s after World War II. But

20:02

I do think the fall of the Berlin Wall

20:05

really turns out to be one of these seismic

20:07

events. If you think about

20:09

trade, the number of countries that come

20:11

online, come into the open world economy,

20:14

in the 50s, Europe returns

20:16

and then Japan starts to come

20:18

back. And then Korea, then you

20:21

have Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong. In

20:24

the 80s and 90s, you get

20:26

China, India. That's two and

20:28

a half billion people, all

20:30

of Eastern Europe, most of Latin America,

20:33

half of Africa. So suddenly you go from, if

20:35

you were to do it on a per year

20:37

basis, 10 or 20 million people

20:40

joining the open trading system to

20:43

three, 400 million joining when

20:45

China comes in. So I've

20:47

often thought that that's part of the China shock. It's

20:50

just the size, it was so different

20:52

from anything we had ever experienced that

20:55

it has had a real effect, but also

20:57

a psychological effect. Okay, let's

20:59

take 1991 as a start date,

21:02

the dissolution of the Soviet Union,

21:04

the subsequent rise of the

21:06

US as the lone superpower for time,

21:08

at least. In

21:10

your work, you often point out that the

21:12

so-called good old days in the US weren't

21:14

actually very good, at least for most people.

21:17

So let's go with that

21:19

somewhat optimistic theme. When

21:21

you think about the US since

21:23

1991, what would you say have

21:25

been some of the best long-term

21:27

geopolitical decisions since the collapse of

21:29

the Soviet Union? I think

21:31

probably the most fundamental one was

21:33

to not retreat into isolationism again,

21:35

as the United States had a

21:38

tendency to want to do after

21:40

every major war. After

21:42

World War I, famously, Wilson tries to

21:44

commit the United States to a new

21:46

global system, the League of Nations, and

21:48

the US basically pulls back, which

21:51

then is a huge factor in

21:53

the rise of fascism, the collapse of

21:55

the global economic order, all that. After

21:58

1945, there were a lot of people. who wanted

22:01

rapid demobilization. NATO was

22:03

very unpopular among Republicans.

22:05

So after 1989, there

22:08

was none of that. There was a very

22:10

clear sense that the United

22:12

States needed to stay engaged in

22:14

the world. The key to America's

22:16

hegemony has been this idea that

22:19

we will work on geopolitical stability

22:21

and we will be very sensitive,

22:24

shall we say, jealous of anyone

22:26

who tries to challenge our geopolitical

22:28

hegemony. But you can get rich. You

22:31

can thrive. You can prosper in the world.

22:33

You can raise your people's standards of living.

22:36

And that bargain has worked

22:38

miraculously. I think the biggest

22:41

mistakes probably are all

22:43

ones where the United States overextended

22:46

itself in the

22:48

search for some kind of perfect

22:50

stability, bringing democracy to Iraq, even

22:52

to Afghanistan, rather than

22:54

a narrower focus on punishing Al

22:57

Qaeda and the Taliban for what

22:59

it did in 9-11. That's an

23:01

interesting distinction you draw between enabling

23:03

prosperity in other countries versus the

23:05

more common label of spreading

23:07

democracy. But I am curious to

23:09

know what you think about the

23:11

width and breadth and sustainability, I

23:14

guess, of democracy. So this year, more

23:16

than 50 countries representing about half

23:19

the global population are holding national

23:21

elections. The US, of course, but

23:24

also India, Indonesia, the UK,

23:26

I believe they're early 2025, Pakistan,

23:29

Taiwan, Mexico, South Africa. So

23:32

what do you think is the

23:34

significance of this year for democracy,

23:36

per se? And how

23:39

do you see that affecting long-term

23:41

US interests? I

23:43

Think the biggest challenge we face

23:45

this year, and it's a larger

23:47

trend, of course, is the one

23:49

that I identified about 20 years

23:52

ago, which is the rise of

23:54

illiberal democracy. I've always thought the

23:56

United States does better when it

23:58

encourages conditions that lead to the

24:00

spread of democracy, rather than the

24:02

rise of democracy. that an imposing

24:04

it by forcing elections. If you

24:06

think about countries that modernize the

24:09

economy's modernize the society's often under

24:11

dictatorships and then modernize the political

24:13

systems. If you look at South

24:15

Korea and Taiwan, the two most

24:17

consolidated liberal democracies and a sub

24:19

were the first to modernize the

24:21

economy. Then that results in the

24:23

creation of a middle class. Then

24:26

that very reluctantly and under enormous

24:28

pressure opened up the political system.

24:30

But that stuff that ended up giving

24:32

you a much more stable basis than

24:34

say holding election in Pakistan without any

24:37

of those can com it and forces

24:39

a big surprise that do it you

24:41

end up with is a very liberal

24:43

democracy but ultimately a sign of the

24:45

victory of democracy ideologically is even the

24:47

dictators hold elections skyn of i would

24:50

goodness going to hold an election the

24:52

run as they used to be an

24:54

old joke about Mubarak when he was

24:56

the president of Egypt which is that

24:58

he would hold the election. And welcomed

25:00

him and say your Excellency we have

25:03

good news. The. Election has taken

25:05

place. You have one ninety seven percent

25:07

of the vote. What more can you

25:09

ask for? Your excellency and he would

25:11

say the names of the three percent

25:14

who did not vote from the assessment.

25:16

But the real significance is. We're.

25:18

Seeing democracy? But are we

25:20

seeing Liberal democracy? The.

25:22

Distinction I make is that there

25:24

was a liberal tradition to democracy,

25:26

rule of law, separation of powers,

25:28

individual rights, minority rights, or that

25:30

those are being undermined in many

25:32

of these places. So. You

25:35

write a lot in this book

25:37

and elsewhere about the rise of

25:39

populist politics in the current era.

25:41

It's certainly not the first time,

25:43

but also, eve Disgust a recent

25:45

interesting reversal. And that's in Poland.

25:48

The. our is really is fascinating to

25:50

see what you have an eastern europe

25:52

is this a dramatic shift and liberal

25:55

democracy asked of the soviet union collapses

25:57

and so we all celebrated and we

25:59

forget that these are still societies

26:01

that are not that advanced economically, they

26:03

don't have large middle classes. They've

26:06

lost whatever tradition they had of

26:09

rule of law and independent institutions because

26:11

they've been under communism for

26:13

half a century and under Russian

26:15

occupation effectively for half a century.

26:18

And so they're still scarred societies.

26:21

What we discovered in Poland is that

26:24

there were these deeply illiberal

26:26

populist forces there and once

26:29

the system sort of shook out,

26:31

you saw the rise of classic

26:33

illiberal populism, which after all is

26:35

a very familiar story in Europe.

26:37

This is the land of Hitler

26:39

and Mussolini and its classic illiberal

26:41

democracy, voted in democratically, and

26:44

then they start to use the state

26:46

media which had been set up in

26:48

Poland almost like the BBC and they

26:50

turn it into basically state propaganda. They

26:53

try to back the judiciary and strip

26:55

it of some of its independence. They

26:57

try to back the bureaucracy. They

27:00

want to fill it with their party loyalists. But

27:02

the good news, it turns out there

27:05

is a very core liberal democratic fabric in

27:07

the country still and they had

27:09

these recent elections in which it was clear what

27:11

was at stake and you got

27:13

a higher turnout in that election than

27:15

you got in the election that led

27:17

to the fall of communism in 89.

27:20

You had, I think, 72% turnout. Were

27:23

you surprised that the existing rulers allowed

27:25

an actual fair and open election there

27:27

in Poland? Because in many countries,

27:29

they don't. We read the data out

27:32

of Iran, for instance. If we

27:34

believe that data, we would think that if

27:36

there were an open election held that the

27:38

theocracy would be gone tomorrow, correct? Yeah,

27:41

I suspect so, though. I think it

27:43

has more support than we realize. But

27:45

I think that it's important to note

27:47

the progress implied in what you're describing,

27:49

which is people want

27:51

democracy. People want the legitimacy

27:53

that comes from choice and

27:56

public participation. And that's

27:58

a good thing. It just needs to be

28:00

a good thing. accompanied also with liberalism and

28:02

constitutionalism and the rule of law. So

28:06

what happens in a society

28:08

without those things? Putin represents

28:10

this feeling that we

28:12

were once great and we have

28:14

been stripped of our greatness. I'm Stephen

28:16

Dubner. This is Freakonomics Radio. We will

28:19

be right back with Fareed Zakaria. And

28:27

be safe out there. Freakonomics Radio is

28:29

sponsored by NetSuite. To reduce costs and

28:32

headaches, smart businesses are graduating to NetSuite

28:34

by Oracle. NetSuite is

28:36

the number one cloud financial system

28:38

bringing accounting, financial management, inventory and

28:41

HR into one platform and one

28:43

source of truth. With

28:45

NetSuite, you reduce IT costs because

28:47

NetSuite lives in the cloud with

28:49

no hardware required. Access

28:51

from anywhere. You cut the cost

28:53

of maintaining multiple systems because you've

28:55

got one unified business management suite.

28:58

And you're improving efficiency by bringing

29:00

all your major business processes into

29:02

one platform, slashing manual tasks and

29:04

errors. Over 37,000

29:06

companies have already made the move. So

29:09

do the math. See how you will

29:11

profit with NetSuite. Now through

29:13

April 15th, NetSuite is offering

29:15

a one of a kind

29:17

flexible financing program. Head to

29:19

netsuite.com/freak right now. netsuite.com/freak.

29:27

Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Redfin. Whether

29:29

you need to buy or sell a

29:31

home or you're just obsessed with looking

29:33

at homes for sale, Redfin has got

29:35

you covered. Redfin updates their listings every

29:37

two minutes and they give you personalized

29:39

recommendations based on the homes you like

29:41

so you can find the home that's

29:43

just right for you. With

29:45

the top-rated Redfin app, you can

29:47

favorite homes, share listings with others

29:49

and schedule tours even the same

29:51

day with a local Redfin agent.

29:53

And if you're looking to sell,

29:55

Redfin agents get you the best price

29:57

possible for your home. as

30:00

low as 1%, Redfin's fees are half

30:02

of what others often charge. In fact,

30:05

last year, Redfin saved home sellers $127

30:08

million. No matter where

30:10

you are in your real estate journey,

30:12

Redfin can help. Download the Redfin app

30:15

to get started today. Farid

30:25

Zakaria is host of the weekly

30:27

CNN program GPS that stands for

30:29

Global Public Square, and

30:31

he has written several books including

30:33

The Post-American World and The Future

30:35

of Freedom. His new book

30:37

is called Age of Revolutions, in

30:40

which he argues that we are living

30:42

through possibly the most revolutionary period in

30:44

human history. At first

30:46

glance, that claim might

30:49

seem hyperbolic. There aren't so

30:51

many people storming so many

30:53

barricades, but that makes Zakaria's

30:55

point. The current revolution, he

30:57

argues, is a retreat

31:00

from a massive trend toward

31:02

open societies replaced by

31:04

a facsimile of openness that

31:06

is usually stage managed by

31:09

an autocrat. Here's what

31:11

Zakaria writes about Russia. Vladimir

31:13

Putin has harnessed identity politics

31:16

and jingoism as a response

31:18

to his nation's structural decline.

31:21

And Zakaria says Putin has done

31:23

this masterfully. He's

31:27

stripped the country of any opposition. He

31:29

stripped the country of the civic culture

31:31

that allows for free exchange of ideas

31:34

and organization of opposition politics and all

31:36

that. And within that

31:39

denuded desert landscape, he

31:41

is popular. As we heard

31:43

Zakaria say earlier, the fall of

31:45

the Berlin Wall and the collapse

31:47

of Soviet communism was a seismic

31:49

event. He also argues

31:51

that this shock was felt most acutely

31:54

in Russia, where it continues to resonate.

31:56

Russia is fundamentally a

31:59

revulsion. Great Power. The

32:01

Soviet Empire is about 70 years old.

32:03

The Russian Empire is three to four

32:05

hundred years old. That's

32:08

part of what is the

32:10

great wave of nostalgia that

32:12

Putin represents, this feeling that

32:14

we were once great and we have

32:16

been stripped of our greatness. And Russia

32:18

really was on its knees in the

32:20

1990s. I point out in the book

32:22

the Russian economy shrunk by 50% in

32:25

five or six years. That's more than

32:27

it shrunk during World War Two. So it

32:30

really was on its back. Life expectancy

32:32

plummeted and by the way still

32:34

in very bad shape. But then

32:36

because of all the other forces

32:38

we've talked about growing globalization and

32:40

liberalization, the economy starts growing mightily.

32:43

And Russia is the greatest provider

32:45

of natural resources in the world.

32:47

It's not just oil, it's natural

32:49

gas, it's coal, it's nickel, it's

32:52

aluminum. So it rides on

32:54

this wave of global growth. And

32:56

does it rise so much that it creates

32:59

a rich Russia? No, because

33:01

the economy is still fundamentally screwed up,

33:03

but it rises enough that it creates

33:05

a very rich Russian state. Now,

33:07

when you say the economy is screwed up,

33:09

there was an opportunity there, right? When all

33:11

kinds of firms were privatized, it became the

33:14

worst kind of crony capitalism. But theoretically, a

33:17

pivot could have been done there that might

33:19

have resulted in an actually rich country for

33:21

the people who live there. Yeah? Oh,

33:24

absolutely. The 1990s were a fascinating

33:26

experiment where you tried to take

33:28

a country that had been a

33:30

totally communist economy and figure out

33:32

how to make a capitalist economy

33:34

out of it. Clearly, it failed.

33:37

I don't want to say we failed because

33:39

I think that gives the US too much

33:41

agency. The US did give lots of advice.

33:43

Much of it was probably bad. But

33:45

it's one of these things that

33:48

what works better are slow, incremental,

33:50

organic changes. And so it

33:53

turned into a disaster. It turned into,

33:55

as you say, the worst kind of

33:57

crony capitalism. Russia has such a deep

33:59

tradition of statism. So maybe it was never

34:01

going to work, but certainly we didn't do a

34:03

good job. When you talk about

34:05

that deep tradition of statism, it makes me

34:07

want to ask you a question that is

34:10

the kind of question that I think is

34:12

very unpopular in political science circles and in

34:14

public as well. And that comes to national

34:16

character. So if you read politics, you know,

34:20

40, 50, 100 years ago, there was a lot of discussion about how

34:23

the national character of a place like

34:25

Russia determined a lot of its political

34:27

and economic moves. And the same could

34:29

be said of many other countries, especially

34:31

older countries. And the US was seen

34:33

as still kind of a teenager in

34:35

that regard. Would you say

34:37

that Russia is continuing a manifestation

34:40

of its age old Russian empire

34:42

national character now, potentially at the

34:45

expense of better options? I

34:47

would. And I think there's no

34:49

question that Russia has this very

34:52

deep imperial culture that comes

34:54

out of its history. It's the

34:56

last multinational empire. And it is trying to

34:58

hold on to its empire and the way

35:01

that the French did in Algeria

35:03

and in Vietnam and the British did in

35:05

Kenya. It never ends well, does it, when

35:07

they try to hold on? Right. And then

35:09

think about it. The French killed one million

35:11

people in Algeria trying to hold on. But

35:13

you raise an interesting issue, which is this

35:15

issue of national culture. And

35:17

you're right, people have kind of ambivalent feelings about it.

35:20

It's absolutely clear that national culture

35:23

makes a huge difference. But

35:25

it's important to understand that national

35:27

culture is not genetic. It is

35:29

the product of history and institutions

35:31

and policy. And it

35:33

can change. Look, why does Russia

35:35

have this vast imperial tradition? It's

35:37

vast open space, easily conquerable. Western

35:40

Europe in 1500 had 500 different

35:42

states, if you count all

35:45

the duchies and principalities. Why?

35:48

Because it's riven with rivers and

35:50

mountains. So it's very easy to

35:52

defend and very hard to conquer.

35:54

Whereas China and Russia, these vast

35:56

open plains, which ended up with

35:58

vast single empires with centralized power.

36:02

All this matters, but you

36:04

can change it. Daniel Patrick Moynihan,

36:06

the great senator-intellectual, had a line

36:08

where he said, the central conservative

36:10

insight is that culture is more

36:13

important than politics. People

36:15

often use that line, but they forget

36:17

his second line, which was, the central

36:19

liberal insight is that politics can

36:21

change culture. That's a

36:23

really interesting summary and observation. It does

36:25

make me wonder, the people who study

36:28

and have influence in the realms of

36:30

politics and economics, two separate sets of

36:32

people, but they have a lot of

36:35

leverage. The people who study and explain

36:37

culture, I would argue, have

36:39

much less leverage. Do you think that's a problem?

36:41

And if so, what do you think should be

36:44

done about it? Yeah, it's a

36:46

huge problem. And I think it explains many

36:48

of our greatest policy failures. If

36:50

there's a central policy failure in American foreign

36:52

policy over the last 75 years, I would

36:55

say it's our inability

36:57

to understand nationalism. We

36:59

didn't understand nationalism in Vietnam. We

37:01

didn't understand it in Iraq. The

37:04

greatest lost opportunity was in the 50s

37:06

and 60s, all these third

37:08

world countries were fundamentally

37:12

pro-American in the sense that they looked

37:14

at the old colonial empires of Europe

37:16

and hated them. They looked at America

37:18

and admired a lot about America. And

37:22

we blew it all because we got

37:24

into this mindset that ideology was all

37:26

that mattered, that communism versus capitalism was

37:28

the great divide. We didn't

37:30

understand the complexity of the situation. I'll give

37:32

you an example of the country I grew

37:34

up in. India was

37:36

not fundamentally pro-Soviet in any

37:38

sense, but the

37:41

people who had supported Indian independence when

37:43

it was a colony of Britain were

37:45

all the socialist states. So there

37:48

was a kind of left-wing orientation

37:50

to India's founding because those were

37:52

its comrades. But it

37:54

was all misread as some kind of anti-democratic,

37:57

anti-Western view. The

38:00

most famous example of this, I think, is we

38:02

misread Ho Chi Minh, who when he started out

38:05

petitioned the United States for help in the 40s.

38:08

And instead we branded him from the

38:10

start a communist. Flash forward to Iraq,

38:13

where we fundamentally didn't understand that the

38:15

country's nationalism was very complicated because it

38:17

had these three communities, the Shia, the

38:19

Sunni, and the Kurds, who hated each

38:21

other, who had never really been part

38:23

of one country except for a brief

38:25

period. So do you think the U.S.

38:27

has become less ideological in that regard in the last

38:29

20 years? No,

38:32

I don't think so. Because I see it in

38:34

China. Russia actually benefits

38:36

from global instability and tension, because

38:38

whenever that happens, the prices of

38:41

commodities, particularly oil, go up. So

38:43

it almost has a structural reason to be

38:45

a spoiler. Whereas the Chinese

38:48

are the opposite. They are a low-resource

38:50

economy. They depend on

38:52

global capital, global investment, global

38:54

markets, and they have

38:56

benefited enormously from that process. The

38:59

world historical mission of the United States

39:02

is to make the world like it, to

39:04

make the world democratic. The

39:06

world historical mission of China is to make

39:08

China great. When they go to Kenya,

39:11

they don't look at Kenya and say, you could

39:13

be like us. They look at Kenya and say,

39:15

you will never be like us, because you're not

39:17

Han Chinese. I've always thought that

39:19

it comes out of the high Protestant tradition.

39:21

If you think of Britain and the United

39:24

States, these two great high Protestant countries, there

39:26

is a universalism inherent in Christianity. That

39:28

is one of the most revolutionary aspects

39:31

of Christianity, which is that we are

39:33

all created the same in God's eyes.

39:35

And that is one of the most wonderful things

39:38

about Christianity, in my view. The last shall be

39:40

first and the first shall be last. The meek

39:42

shall inherit the earth. It's all about

39:44

that. Where the Chinese don't

39:46

believe that at all. They feel like we're

39:48

Chinese, you're not. And so

39:50

that gives it a different outward orientation

39:53

toward the world. Let's talk about

39:55

the Middle East for a bit. First of

39:57

all, if one was around in the early

39:59

2010s, during the Arab Spring,

40:01

one might have thought that that part of the

40:03

world would be radically different than it is in

40:05

2024. I would argue

40:08

it's not very different. Can you talk about

40:10

that, what happened, and what are

40:12

some useful lessons to be drawn from the Arab

40:14

Spring? You know, in 2003,

40:16

I wrote that book, The Future of

40:18

Freedom, about a liberal democracy. I

40:21

basically made the case that the

40:23

Arab world was fundamentally unready for

40:25

liberal democracy. Because of oil wealth, it

40:27

had been able to stop

40:30

the process of modernization, economic modernization,

40:32

social modernization, to an extent that

40:34

no other part of the world

40:36

had been able to. The

40:38

whole structure of that region ended up being

40:41

that the governments didn't need

40:43

to modernize their economies to get

40:45

tax revenue. That's the fundamental

40:48

reason why society is modernized. If

40:50

you think of the American Revolution,

40:52

you know, no taxation without representation.

40:54

So the Saudis basically say it's

40:56

the flip side of that. No

40:59

taxation, no representation. I mean, nice work

41:01

if you can get it, right? Right,

41:03

right. Don't worry, we're not going

41:05

to tax you. And by the way, we're

41:07

not going to represent you either. So that

41:09

model, that stagnancy, sort of infused the Arab

41:11

world. And when you just

41:14

rip the bandit and say, okay,

41:16

let's liberalize, let's hold elections, it's

41:18

not going to work out well. And that's

41:20

exactly what happened with the Arab Spring. Every one

41:23

of those countries has now reverted. Now,

41:25

I will say there's one hopeful sign,

41:27

which is that the Gulf Arab

41:29

states have really become

41:32

very forward-looking, not just economically,

41:34

but socially. You look at

41:36

what MBS is doing in Saudi Arabia with

41:38

women. He's really dismantled

41:40

the whole religious police. He's largely

41:43

dismantling the religious educational establishment. He's

41:45

allowing much more freedom of speech

41:47

and, you know, initially it's entertainment

41:50

and all that. These are real

41:52

steps forward for a society that was really,

41:55

in many ways, run like it had been

41:57

run in the Middle Ages. Let

41:59

me ask you to just. give a

42:01

quick description of the differences between the

42:03

leading Arab states today versus the leading

42:06

Arab states a few decades ago. You've

42:08

explained why the shift has happened. It's

42:10

about resources and so on, but can

42:12

you talk about how that may manifest

42:15

itself in geopolitical relationships there, including Israel,

42:17

but also with the rest of the

42:19

world? Yeah, it's really fascinating. So if

42:21

you think back to the Arab world,

42:23

what we meant by the Arab world

42:25

30 or 40 years ago, what we

42:27

really meant were the big Arab countries,

42:30

Iraq, Syria, and above all Egypt. Egypt

42:32

is the cultural heart of the Arab

42:35

world. All great political trends have

42:37

come out of Egypt in the 50s, 60s, 70s.

42:39

All the great pop music stars came out of

42:41

Egypt. All the great writing came

42:43

out of Egypt. Egypt was the center

42:46

of Arab culture, and it

42:48

was deeply infused with this idea

42:50

of pan-Arabism, which was basically all

42:52

the Arabs should be one language,

42:54

one society, one culture, maybe even

42:56

one country. In fact, Narsa tried

42:58

to create a union between Egypt and

43:00

Syria, which actually happened for a few years.

43:02

They were one country, and

43:05

all of it was very anti-Israel.

43:07

It was almost defined by its

43:09

anti-Israeli quality. And why was that,

43:11

Fried? I've always wondered. I mean, it's an obvious

43:13

target for theological

43:16

reasons and some land displacement, but I mean,

43:18

as many people have made the point since

43:20

the October 7th attacks, there have been billions

43:22

of refugees throughout the history of the world,

43:25

and this one has turned out different. So

43:27

why was that pan-Arab position against Israel so

43:29

strong? I think it's a

43:31

great, great point. And it's largely

43:34

because you were searching for a

43:36

way to unify these very disparate

43:38

countries that are actually not- Common

43:40

enemy is a good tactic. Exactly.

43:42

In fact, it wasn't very religious.

43:44

It was fundamentally they're different. They're

43:46

newcomers. They're alien. Let's gang up

43:48

against them. And that became the

43:50

animating part of pan-Arabism. It

43:53

never really worked. Pan-Arabism collapsed because these

43:55

countries are very different, and they often

43:57

don't like each other much. And

44:00

now what you have in a

44:02

post-industrial economy, in a post-industrial world,

44:05

is that the Gulf states

44:07

have become so rich that they

44:10

absolutely dominate the Arab world. Egypt

44:13

is now in a tight police state

44:15

dictatorship. Syria is in chaos. Iraq is

44:17

in chaos. And they all

44:19

depend on handouts from the Gulf states.

44:21

So the Gulf states have realized that

44:24

as very rich hedge funds, if you

44:26

will, they need stability. They

44:28

need predictability. And they look at

44:30

Israel and think, this is a

44:32

natural partnership. We have the money.

44:34

They have the brains, to put it crudely, as one

44:36

Saudi told me. We should

44:38

be making alliances. That's been going

44:40

on behind the scenes for years now, yes? Absolutely.

44:44

The UAE, for example, has

44:46

had active intelligence cooperation with

44:48

Israel for at least a decade that I

44:51

know of. Qatar had very, very close relations

44:53

with Israel. They cut them off after

44:55

one of the attacks on Hamas in

44:58

Gaza, but they still maintain informal contacts.

45:00

And the Saudis are itching to do

45:02

it. So how do the

45:04

Saudis and the UAE, and

45:06

even Qatar, see the

45:08

Hamas attack of Israel on October We've

45:11

read a lot about how the

45:13

Hamas attack was connected to the

45:16

Iranian position in the region. I'm

45:18

just curious how you think those Gulf state powers actually see

45:20

it, and what they think is

45:22

a viable outcome for them. With

45:25

the exception of Qatar, I think they all view

45:27

it as an unfortunate interruption

45:29

of trends that they were hoping

45:32

would move in that direction. In

45:34

other words, UAE, Bahrain, Saudi have

45:36

no love for Hamas. They hate

45:38

Hamas. They don't like Islamic fundamentalism.

45:41

And they ban all the stuff in their own

45:43

countries very viciously. And they don't

45:46

like the fact that Hamas is backed

45:48

by Iran. But they recognize that the

45:50

Palestinian cause is very popular at home.

45:52

I mean, it's wildly popular. And

45:54

so they've all backed off. But

45:56

you notice not one of them has several relations with Israel,

45:59

not for the rest of one of them, they're

46:01

all trying to basically find a way to

46:03

get back on track how much would we

46:05

need to do on the Palestinian issue so

46:07

that we can get back to what we

46:09

really want to do, which is to establish

46:12

relations with Israel. I heard

46:14

a recent interview with John Bolton, the former

46:16

national security advisor. He was asked what he

46:18

would advise the Israeli government do next in

46:20

Gaza. That was a phrase. And

46:23

he said, the important strategic contest for Israel and

46:25

for the United States is to see that this

46:27

is a struggle not just against Hamas but against

46:29

Iran. And what Hamas instituted

46:32

on October 7th was part of

46:34

the Revolutionary Guard's Ring of Fire

46:36

strategy around Israel. I'd never

46:38

heard of Iran's Ring of Fire strategy. I

46:40

assume you could explain it to me. Sure.

46:43

They sometimes call it an axis of resistance. And

46:45

I don't think John is exaggerating when he

46:47

says it's a Ring of Fire around Israel.

46:50

Iran's fundamentally concerned about

46:52

Iran. What it has done over

46:54

the last 20 years is recognizing

46:57

that it is weak, that it is

46:59

under sanctions, that it is not going

47:01

to be able to compete. Saudi Arabia's

47:04

defense budget is, I think, roughly 10

47:06

times Iran's. So Iran, most of

47:08

you don't realize, is actually fundamentally weak. But

47:11

out of its weakness, because it's a very shrewd

47:13

strategic player. I mean, the Persian Empire is 5,000 years

47:15

old. They have

47:18

come up with this asymmetrical strategy,

47:20

which is they have infiltrated themselves

47:22

with a series of militias around

47:25

the world. So it's Hamas

47:27

in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon,

47:29

the Houthis in Yemen, the

47:31

militias of Iraq, Assad.

47:34

In Syria, they actually have the Assad government.

47:36

They fund them, but the funding is very,

47:38

you know, again, it's an asymmetrical strategy.

47:40

This is pennies on the dollar that Saudi

47:43

Arabia uses to buy defense weaponry from

47:45

the U.S. But it's very

47:47

effective because it keeps everyone off edge. It

47:49

gives them the ability to kind of harass

47:51

and put you on the defense. And

47:54

that is their fundamental strategy. Some of

47:57

this helps them harass

47:59

Israel. and they want to do

48:01

that. But it's important to realize it's fundamentally

48:03

about preserving Iran and its freedom of maneuver.

48:06

Are you surprised the extent to

48:08

which so many Western supporters, mostly

48:10

liberal Western supporters, have gotten behind

48:13

the Palestinian cause considering the fact

48:15

that the Hamas attack is essentially

48:17

tied to Iran? I

48:19

think that what most people are doing

48:21

is not thinking about that geopolitical dimension

48:24

to it, and just thinking about the

48:26

fact that the Palestinians have been living

48:28

under occupation for 56 years. And

48:31

there's a sad story there that you

48:33

can latch onto, but it does

48:35

mean that you're forgetting or ignoring

48:37

that there is also a geopolitical play here. And

48:39

the way I would put it is the Iranians

48:41

have used that occupation,

48:44

used it to infiltrate themselves into the

48:46

circumstance and turned it into a geopolitical

48:48

issue. I'm

48:51

Stephen Dubner, this is Free Climate's Radio. We

48:53

don't talk about geopolitics too often on this

48:55

show, but it does come up. One

48:58

of our most popular episodes of all time is

49:01

called Is the U.S. Really Less Corrupt

49:03

Than China, with the political

49:05

scientist Yu-Nyu and Aung. If

49:08

you'd like to hear it or any of the more than

49:10

500 episodes in our

49:12

archive, they are all available, free

49:15

on any podcast app or platform.

49:17

So get busy. And

49:19

if you would like to hear all those

49:21

episodes without ads and

49:23

get a weekly bonus episode of Free

49:26

economics radio, you should become a member

49:28

of our free economics radio plus membership

49:30

program. Just go to the free economics

49:32

radio page on Apple podcast or

49:35

go to free economics.com/plus. We

49:37

will be right back with

49:39

Reed Zakaria. Free

49:48

economics radio is sponsored by Walmart plus.

49:50

Walmart plus is the membership that helps

49:52

you save on things you expect plus

49:54

the things you don't. The plus in

49:56

Walmart plus stands for all the ways

49:58

you can save Walmart. Plus's suite of

50:00

benefits can be used every day to

50:02

help members save time and money. Members

50:05

save on free delivery, free shipping,

50:07

gas discounts, plus so much more.

50:10

With Walmart Plus, members save on this

50:12

plus so much more. Start

50:15

a free 30-day

50:17

trial at www.wallmartplus.com.

50:22

Free economics radio is sponsored by Amica

50:25

Insurance. Amica Insurance is all about empathy.

50:27

They know your auto, home and life

50:29

insurance are more than just policies. Home

50:32

insurance is about protecting the life you've built. Auto

50:34

insurance is there to protect you on the road

50:37

ahead. That's why Amica takes

50:39

a consultative approach to help protect what matters

50:41

most to you. They are

50:43

a customer-owned insurance company that puts

50:46

your needs first, and their representatives

50:48

are available 24-7 for claim-related matters.

50:51

Plus Amica says empathy is our

50:53

best policy. In

50:58

the 2010s, the dream of artificial

51:00

intelligence that could rival and even

51:02

surpass the human brain became real.

51:05

The big tech companies, Google,

51:07

Facebook, Meta, knew they'd have

51:09

to harness this technology if they were going

51:11

to win the new AI race. In

51:14

fact, it was key to their

51:16

very survival. But researchers within each company

51:18

would soon sound the alarm that if

51:20

the tech giants moved too fast, the

51:23

consequences could be devastating. Hi,

51:25

I'm David Brown, the host of Wondery Show Business

51:27

Wars. We go deep into some of

51:29

the biggest corporate rivalries of all time. And

51:32

in our latest season, the tech behemoth

51:34

spiked to dominate the artificial intelligence space

51:37

and reckon with the costs. Follow

51:39

Business Wars wherever you get your podcasts.

51:41

You can listen ad-free on the Amazon

51:43

Music or Wondery app. When

51:52

Fareed Zakaria writes in his new book,

51:54

Age of Revolutions, that we are living

51:56

through an intensely revolutionary era, he

51:59

isn't only talking about... about geopolitics.

52:02

It is true that some regimes may be on

52:04

the verge of collapse, or at least radical change,

52:06

but he's also concerned about the

52:08

other revolutions we are living through. Economic,

52:12

technological, even emotional. On

52:14

the emotional front, it does sometimes feel

52:17

like all eight billion of us are

52:19

playing a tug of war between universalism

52:22

and tribalism. Here's

52:24

how Zakaria puts it in his book. Modern

52:26

civilization has given ordinary human beings

52:29

greater freedom, wealth, and dignity than

52:31

any before it. If

52:33

it collapses and the new dark

52:35

ages arrive, it will be because

52:37

in our myopia and our

52:39

petty rivalries, we lost sight

52:42

of the fact that we are the heirs

52:44

to the greatest tradition in human history, one

52:46

that liberated the human mind and spirit and

52:49

whose greatest achievements are yet to come."

52:54

So Fareed Zakaria has an

52:56

optimistic streak. Our greatest achievements

52:58

are yet to come, but

53:01

he is also a true student of history.

53:04

So there was something I wanted to run

53:06

past him. This was a question sent in

53:08

by a listener. Here's

53:11

an easy question. Is the US in

53:13

a state of decline that we might

53:15

recognize from the decline of the Roman

53:17

Empire, let's say, or nowhere near that?

53:21

Getting it close, the United States is

53:23

probably more dominant in many core measures

53:25

than it has ever been. And I

53:27

think it's fundamentally important that we understand

53:29

this because a lot of

53:31

our bad policies come out of

53:33

a mistaken fear of decline. The

53:36

whole policy toward China economically is

53:38

premised on the idea that the

53:40

US has been declining, it has

53:43

been hollowed out industrially, China

53:45

has taken advantage of it and is

53:47

rising, and it's all wrong. One

53:50

of the key measures of your long-term

53:52

strength is who dominates the world of

53:54

technology. Go back to the 16th century,

53:56

it was the Dutch, 18th century, it

53:58

was the British. Americans have

54:00

certainly been for the 20th century. If

54:03

you were to look in 1980 and

54:05

say, what were the dominant technology companies

54:07

in the world by market cap, the

54:09

US would probably have three or four.

54:12

Today when you look at the biggest technology

54:14

companies by market cap, they're all American. We've

54:17

never been more dominant technologically. It's

54:19

in software, it's in hardware, it's

54:22

in artificial intelligence, it's in quantum,

54:24

it's now going to be in

54:26

nanotechnology. Even if you look

54:28

at demographics, another core indicator, we are

54:30

the only rich country in the world

54:32

that is demographically vibrant. Europe

54:35

is turning into a retirement community. Although

54:37

we are growing primarily by immigration because

54:39

our fertility rate has fallen. Yeah, our

54:41

fertility rate is basically the same as

54:44

Europe's. The only difference is we take

54:46

in one million people a year legally

54:48

and we assimilate them very well, I

54:50

would argue, as an immigrant. But as

54:52

a result, we are demographically vibrant and

54:55

we will continue to be demographically vibrant

54:57

unless we do some kind

54:59

of Trumpian quotas or

55:01

freeze. If you look at energy,

55:03

this is a total transformation from the last 25

55:05

years. We were the world's

55:07

biggest energy importer. We are now the

55:10

world's biggest energy producer. We produce more

55:12

natural gas than Qatar. We produce more

55:14

oil than Saudi Arabia. It's

55:16

extraordinary. And we have this Green Revolution

55:18

where we're becoming dominant players there. So

55:20

I look at this sometimes and I

55:22

think to myself, what country would you

55:24

have traded places with over the last

55:26

30 years? We have

55:29

the best hand in the world. Your

55:31

answer suggests that we also lead the

55:33

world, however, in beating ourselves up. We've

55:36

always been somewhat introspective and I think that's a

55:38

good tendency and I think worrying about it is

55:40

a good idea because it forces

55:42

you to fix your problems. But not

55:44

when you sort of get paralyzed and

55:46

you start making these mistakes. Why have

55:48

we done so well? Because we are

55:50

a thriving free market economy where we

55:52

allow our companies to be

55:54

tested against the world. Would the American car industry

55:57

have been better off if we had shielded it

55:59

for the future? from Japanese competition? Would

56:01

our information technology companies be better off

56:03

if they lived in a hermetically sealed

56:05

bubble and never had to be tested

56:08

against the Alibaba's of the world and

56:10

the TikToks of the world? So I

56:12

worry a lot that the fundamental driver

56:14

of American strength has been the fact

56:17

that we compete, we go out

56:19

there and we hustle and we do it against

56:21

the best in the world. As long as we

56:23

keep that goose that lays the golden egg going,

56:26

we'll be fine. China hasn't become

56:28

more like us, but we have become a

56:30

lot more like China in the last 10 years. If

56:33

Trump were to win the presidency

56:35

this fall, how seriously do you

56:37

believe we should take his talk

56:39

of, as I read it,

56:41

essentially wanting to establish a dictatorship or

56:43

something that looks like one, much closer

56:45

than we've had in this country? You

56:48

never know with Trump because he's such a

56:50

kind of weird

56:52

narcissist that everything is

56:54

filtered through the question of, is this

56:57

good for me? When he

56:59

was president, he literally passed executive orders

57:01

that would have essentially banned TikTok and

57:03

the courts overturned them saying, you can't

57:05

do this by fiat. And now

57:07

he says, he doesn't want to ban TikTok. Why? Because

57:10

it would give Facebook more business and he thinks

57:12

Facebook is against him. So the

57:14

whole thing is always interpreted through the lens of

57:16

what will this do to me? He

57:18

is the first president in

57:20

American history to contest the

57:22

elections that were clearly free

57:25

and fair and attempt to

57:27

subvert that process of peaceful

57:29

transfer. That's a pretty core

57:31

element of the American constitution.

57:33

It may be the essence of

57:36

democracy. Which political leaders

57:38

past or present does Trump remind

57:40

you most of? That's

57:42

a very good question. I would say

57:44

he reminds me right now of Erdogan

57:47

in Turkey. Trump is not

57:49

as popular as Erdogan, but Erdogan

57:51

certainly has the same completely cavalier

57:54

towards norms, traditions. He

57:56

uses his political power to

57:58

prosecute his enemies. enemies. And

58:01

as a result, Turkey is one of these places

58:03

where I feel the sadness you were talking about

58:05

because there's no question in my mind that

58:08

over the last 20 years, Turkey

58:10

has gone significantly backward

58:14

on many core elements of what make

58:16

a good society. For his entire span

58:18

in office, he has undermined the rule

58:20

of law, undermined the courts, undermined the

58:22

bureaucracy, used political power to

58:25

persecute his enemies, upended old,

58:27

longstanding norms, practically ran a third time

58:29

when he was not supposed to by

58:31

changing the constitution. So Trump

58:34

is a lot like that. Okay, so assuming

58:36

it's Biden, Trump, who do you see winning?

58:38

The polls right now suggest Trump.

58:41

The elections right now suggest Biden.

58:43

I'm not copying out, but polling

58:46

sometimes reflects people's

58:48

general attitude, their feeling of unhappiness.

58:50

They think Biden is too old.

58:53

But an election is about you in the

58:55

booth and you have a choice between these

58:57

two people and it's serious. It's not just

58:59

you mouthing off to a pollster. If

59:02

I would be forced to bet, I would

59:04

put a small amount of money on Biden.

59:07

But I'd say this with very low

59:09

confidence only because of the craziness of

59:11

our electoral system. There's no

59:13

question Biden will win by over seven

59:15

million, probably nine million votes nationally.

59:18

The question is how will about 150,000 votes

59:22

distribute themselves in four states,

59:24

Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin,

59:27

and Pennsylvania? That

59:29

I don't know. So Fareed,

59:31

I'm a fan of your CNN

59:34

show GPS. You interview politicians and

59:36

institutional leaders, public intellectuals, sometimes artists.

59:38

And in this realm

59:40

of, let's call it TV journalism, but

59:42

even broader journalism, you strike me as

59:45

one of the few honest brokers we

59:47

have. Now maybe it's all a con

59:49

job and you're being paid by hidden

59:51

forces to groupthink us all into some

59:54

perverse outcome. But I don't think so

59:56

because when I read you

59:58

and I watch your work, I just don't

1:00:00

see the usual tendencies that

1:00:02

a lot of journalism, especially

1:00:04

American journalism, has. You don't

1:00:06

shout, you don't harangue,

1:00:09

but you also don't sugarcoat. And

1:00:11

so I really appreciate

1:00:13

that as a consumer of it, but

1:00:15

as a producer of media myself, I

1:00:17

want to know how you do

1:00:19

that, and how can the rest of us do a little bit

1:00:21

more of that. Dr. S. B. Chitluri I'm very

1:00:24

flattered by what you said, but you

1:00:26

are detecting exactly what I'm trying to do.

1:00:29

Part of it comes naturally, I really think

1:00:31

of myself as trying to understand each issue

1:00:34

and not start out by saying, you know, I have a

1:00:36

team, and this team is always

1:00:38

right. So on things like the border, I've

1:00:40

been very tough on Biden and said basically

1:00:42

Trump is right about the border crisis. On

1:00:45

a lot of the affirmative action stuff,

1:00:47

the university stuff, I've been more what

1:00:49

people would consider right wing on other

1:00:51

things, I've been more left wing. I've

1:00:54

always been respectful of the other side because

1:00:56

I do think that there are intellectually interesting

1:00:58

arguments on all these sides. You can't have

1:01:01

75 million people voting

1:01:03

in one direction without there being something

1:01:05

interesting to learn about that. But

1:01:08

the thing that I think has been hardest

1:01:10

is just to stick with what you know

1:01:12

is right and real and

1:01:14

true, and not fall into the social

1:01:17

desire to be part of a club,

1:01:19

the commercial realization

1:01:21

that in journalism,

1:01:24

heat works better than light. I

1:01:27

would be a fish out of water trying the other

1:01:29

stuff. I think it has

1:01:31

worked. I've been able to, by counter

1:01:33

programming in a sense, I've built an

1:01:36

audience and we have

1:01:38

good numbers. So I think part of it

1:01:40

is really trying to be true

1:01:42

to yourself, be authentic so that you can

1:01:44

actually build an audience where people can feel

1:01:46

that. That's the hard part

1:01:49

because the short term incentives are

1:01:51

to yell and scream and to be partisan. I

1:01:54

really do worry about that in the broader

1:01:56

media landscape because I think that actually you're

1:01:58

catering to a very... small part of the

1:02:01

country. Effectively, it's the primary voters,

1:02:03

and you're forgetting that. Superfans.

1:02:06

Right, you're forgetting about the broad general, middle

1:02:08

audience. Let me ask you

1:02:10

a last question. I'm curious what you think

1:02:12

of the role of moral

1:02:15

courage in geopolitics. You write these

1:02:17

amazing histories of so many leaders

1:02:19

and outsiders over the course of

1:02:21

many revolutions, over the course of

1:02:24

several centuries. And a

1:02:26

lot of times it's intellect that wins a day,

1:02:28

sometimes it's economic power, sometimes it's luck being in

1:02:31

the right place at the right time. But

1:02:33

if you look at history, you

1:02:35

do see that often it's the

1:02:37

person who had moral courage or

1:02:39

at least a sense of

1:02:42

what that might represent who succeeds.

1:02:44

Not often enough, perhaps. But

1:02:46

I'm curious when you look around the world today

1:02:49

if you can point to some people that you

1:02:51

feel exhibit a high level of that, perhaps? Gosh,

1:02:54

that's a big question. Look, history is

1:02:56

complicated. You know this as well as

1:02:58

I do. Sometimes the bad

1:03:00

guys win. Communism goes on for

1:03:02

decades and decades. Soviet occupations went

1:03:04

on for a long time. Iran

1:03:07

is under a nasty repressive

1:03:09

regime now for 35 years. North Korea,

1:03:13

all those places. What I

1:03:15

would say is that in the

1:03:17

broad sweep of history, countries

1:03:19

and people who have embodied or

1:03:22

in some way encouraged the

1:03:24

best ideas, the ideas that are

1:03:26

most consonant with human flourishing and

1:03:29

development have done remarkably

1:03:31

well. Just the idea of

1:03:33

democracy. When it starts out, it's

1:03:36

a peculiar practice adopted

1:03:38

by a handful of countries nestled

1:03:40

in the North Atlantic. And

1:03:43

look at where it is today. And I

1:03:45

think the extent to which the United States

1:03:47

has been at the forefront

1:03:49

of this process for the last hundred

1:03:51

years is something we should take

1:03:53

enormous pride in. Now there is

1:03:55

a danger to overdoing it,

1:03:58

to pushing too fast. Another

1:04:00

negative lesson is the lesson of the French

1:04:02

Revolution. Not that the ideas of

1:04:04

the French Revolution were bad, they were in many

1:04:06

cases deeply admirable, but they

1:04:08

were overly theoretical, overly

1:04:10

radical, pushing them on society

1:04:13

at a time when they weren't going

1:04:15

to be adopted and produce an enormous

1:04:17

backlash. So I think a

1:04:19

lot of times we've gone astray because

1:04:21

we've curtailed our morality in order to

1:04:23

play power politics, often have done it

1:04:26

very badly, supported some crazy African dictator

1:04:28

for no rhyme or reason. And a lot

1:04:31

in South and Central America and in a

1:04:33

lot of places. Exactly. So we've

1:04:35

deviated from that. But in the main, when

1:04:37

you compare it to the alternatives, in the

1:04:39

20th century you had the great European powers

1:04:42

that were all rapacious colonialists. You

1:04:44

had the Soviet Union, you had

1:04:46

Mao's China, you had Hitler's Germany.

1:04:49

The US really was the best. And

1:04:51

as long as we can continue to push

1:04:54

in the broadest sense for

1:04:56

human beings to flourish, to be

1:04:58

seen, I think we're doing

1:05:00

something very important. I'm an

1:05:02

unabashed patriot in that sense. And I

1:05:05

think what we're trying to do here

1:05:07

is create a country where people from

1:05:09

all backgrounds, not just exist, but are

1:05:12

seen and come out of the shadows

1:05:14

and are able to be themselves and

1:05:16

do not have to conform to somebody

1:05:18

else's version of what they should be. That's

1:05:21

a deeply admirable thing. And I do think, you

1:05:23

know, we are the good guys and we should

1:05:25

take pride in it. Most

1:05:29

of the people we interview on this

1:05:31

show are academic researchers or experts in

1:05:33

some domain. We don't often

1:05:35

interview journalists. That's

1:05:37

what Fareed Zakaria is, albeit a

1:05:39

journalist with a political science PhD.

1:05:43

I loved this conversation with him. I

1:05:45

don't know if that means that

1:05:47

more journalists should have PhDs or

1:05:50

simply that more journalists should

1:05:53

operate like Zakaria with clarity,

1:05:55

compassion, hardheadedness and

1:05:57

an absence of rancor. What

1:06:01

did you think of this conversation? Our

1:06:03

email is radio at freakonomics.com.

1:06:06

We will be back next week. Until then,

1:06:09

take care of yourself, and if you

1:06:11

can, someone else too. Freakonomics

1:06:13

Radio is produced by Stitcher and

1:06:15

Renbud Radio. You can find our

1:06:17

entire archive on any podcast app,

1:06:20

also at freakonomics.com, where we publish

1:06:22

transcripts and show notes. This

1:06:24

episode was produced by Julie Kanfer.

1:06:26

Our staff also includes Alina Coleman,

1:06:29

Augusta Chapman, Eleanor Osborne, Elsa

1:06:31

Hernandez, Gabriel Roth, Greg Ripon, Jasmine

1:06:33

Clinger, Jeremy Johnston, Lyric Boudich, Morgan

1:06:35

Levy, Neil Carruth, Rebecca Lee Douglas,

1:06:37

Sarah Lilly, and Zach Klapinski. Our

1:06:39

theme song is Mr. Fortune by

1:06:41

The Hitchhikers. The rest of our

1:06:43

music is composed by Luis Guerra.

1:06:45

As always, thank you for listening.

1:06:51

The founders are almost our

1:06:53

theological deities. When we look

1:06:55

at laws today, we

1:06:57

ask ourselves, what would the founding fathers do?

1:07:00

If you went to Britain and

1:07:02

said, we have this law in place banning

1:07:04

marijuana, and somebody else said, well, what would

1:07:06

fit the elder or Charles James Fox have

1:07:09

said about this? People would look at

1:07:11

you like you're nuts. But in America, it's

1:07:13

completely normal to say, well, this is not in

1:07:15

the spirit of Madison or Jefferson. The

1:07:19

Freakin' Al

1:07:35

Feel like you got enough to do already? I

1:07:37

do. That's why I use SHIP Same

1:07:40

Day Delivery to keep up with my busy life.

1:07:42

They know the snacks I like down to the extra

1:07:44

creamy in my peanut butter. I

1:07:48

can get deliveries at home, on set, or even

1:07:50

when I'm away on vacay. And

1:07:52

my personal shopper Amber, she's got

1:07:54

my back. As in, she asks them to

1:07:56

check the back if it's not on the shelf. SHIPT.

1:07:59

Delight in every delivery. Learn

1:08:01

more at ship.com/hi. Time

1:08:05

for a quick break to talk about McDonald's. Wake

1:08:08

up and bagelize. Get your taste buds

1:08:11

ready for McDonald's breakfast bagel sandwiches. Now

1:08:13

just $3 only on the app. Choose

1:08:16

from a delicious steak, egg, and cheese bagel,

1:08:18

bacon, egg, and cheese bagel, or sausage, egg,

1:08:20

and cheese bagel. Just $3 when you order

1:08:22

ahead on the app. Hurry and seize this

1:08:24

breakfast steal before it's gone. Offer

1:08:26

valid one time daily March 11th through April 7th, 2024 participating

1:08:29

McDonald's. Must opt into rewards. At

1:08:34

Capella University you'll get support from

1:08:36

people who care about your success. From

1:08:38

before you enroll to after you graduate.

1:08:40

Pursue your goals knowing help is available

1:08:42

when you need it. Imagine

1:08:44

your future differently at capella.edu.