Placeholder Image

字幕表 動画を再生する

  • It's really great to be joined today by Peter Joseph,

  • the founder of The Zeitgeist Movement

  • and author of the new book which I have here

  • 'The New Human Rights Movement.'

  • Peter, it's so great to talk to you.

  • I really enjoyed going through most of the book

  • over the last week or 10 days or so,

  • and I think to get our audience into

  • what you're tackling in this particular book,

  • I'm sort of left with the idea of

  • looking at individual problems

  • from a structuralist perspective

  • or a broader perspective than we otherwise might.

  • Is that a good way to assess the general idea of this book?

  • Yes, that's a pretty good encapsulation.

  • And when you started writing this book,

  • tell me how you approached the problem.

  • Was it that, in your time researching individual topics,

  • you decided hey, there's a broader issue or a broader perspective

  • we can look at? Did it come in the opposite direction?

  • Did you enter with one particular issue, like for example

  • poverty or hunger, both of which you address in the book?

  • I would say the motivation to approach it this way is

  • taking a good hard look at what we've done as activists throughout time.

  • The activist community tends to be

  • far more localized in their views,

  • they separate themselves into different schools so to speak,

  • you have the ecological activists, the social activists and so on.

  • And after spending a lot of years as an activist myself

  • looking at the world's problems,

  • I realized that there was a strong lapse of any kind of social psychology,

  • anything that related to sociology itself,

  • denying effectively the long-standing social science,

  • the biological science, the psychological science,

  • the sociological science, the ecological influences

  • and that synergy that really defines us as human beings

  • and ultimately defines the state of the world.

  • So I'm trying to take a social science perspective with this book,

  • and I think if people understand it -

  • and that is why its called 'The New Human Rights Movement.'

  • Obviously this subject could,

  • given the context of structuralism as I call it,

  • you could apply it to a lot of different things,

  • but I wanted to hone in on activism for the 21st century.

  • So that's the motivation, to get people on board with more of a

  • social psychology perspective of what needs to happen,

  • to understand yourself and the predicament of the world

  • and how to change it.

  • Maybe to give our audience an example

  • of one issue that you tackle in the book

  • we could talk a little bit about poverty, and

  • I think we all can probably imagine

  • the people we know, who approach poverty from you know:

  • "This is sort of the way things are,

  • despite our system, poverty is an inevitability.

  • It's always there, it's always going to be there."

  • And you take a different approach

  • which is: poverty is an optional and also direct result

  • of the systems that we've chosen.

  • So, can we start with the conversation around poverty

  • and how you approach it?

  • Yeah, it's disheartening to see

  • how passive people have become about

  • both domestic and international poverty.

  • Poverty is, in the words of Gandhi, "the worst form of violence."

  • Systemically speaking, it leads to so many different

  • detrimental outcomes, whether you're dealing with mental health,

  • whether you're dealing with interpersonal relationships,

  • whether you're dealing with physical health.

  • And if you look closely poverty and its encapsulating system,

  • overarching system reference which you call socioeconomic inequality

  • (which is what I address throughout the book a lot),

  • poverty is an externality of our system,

  • an externality of market capitalism,

  • it's an externality of the economy.

  • Within that particular context,

  • it's a great starting point because I think everyone

  • has experienced poverty on some basic level, whether

  • vicariously, watching the Global South

  • and the complete destitution that still exists there today

  • as an issue of post-colonialism which is

  • something to point out as well. I mean,

  • I don't want to get too spirally here

  • but I think it's important to point out that people have this great mythology

  • about where poverty came from and people say

  • "Well, we've just left people behind in capitalism" and so on.

  • The people in the Global South, in Africa, Latin America, Asia and so on that

  • are still in destitute third world poverty,

  • are not there because they've been left behind,

  • they're there because over the course of time they've effectively been robbed.

  • And that's something that isn't given enough gravity of course

  • in the intellectual circles as to why these things exist,

  • which makes you kind of upset when you hear people talk about

  • how we've advanced poverty on this planet without

  • talking about the fact that the reason poverty exists

  • is because of the social system's incentives

  • at the same time, over the long term.

  • But to be more specific to your question, poverty is both

  • a cause and an effect in terms of epidemiology.

  • In social science research, people refer to poverty as

  • a "root" of something, for example,

  • families in poverty are known to

  • create children that have lower IQs.

  • The brain function doesn't develop as well.

  • There's reductions in the amygdala and the hippocampus.

  • Literally, you're creating brain damage

  • through the synergy of poverty and deprivation, that's just one example.

  • But it's also known as an effect too.

  • That's why it's addressed in the book as such.

  • I refer to it as a negative externality. For those familiar with economics,

  • an externality is something that happens

  • outside of the purview, the reference point

  • of what economics recognizes.

  • So pollution is a negative externality for example, as is poverty.

  • And that's a pretty radical thing for me to say because

  • as you've pointed out, most people have not perceived it that way.

  • But when you look at the amount of wealth on this planet,

  • in material terms - I'm not just talking about money -

  • but even if you look at the money, it's pretty staggering, you know.

  • We all know about the inequality statistics, I won't go into that.

  • Poverty could easily be resolved both through financial means

  • and through efficient use of resources with modern methods.

  • But we don't do it

  • because of the way the economic structure is organized,

  • its incentives, its procedural dynamics you could say.

  • And that is, of course, a big subject in the book,

  • and I really hope people will begin to understand moreso that

  • poverty is really just a form of violence

  • coming down from our social system, doesn't need to exist

  • and we should work to change it.

  • And Peter, some people will hear what we've talked about so far

  • and they'll say, listen, you're criticizing the capitalist system,

  • and you know, some people are poor in capitalism

  • but if you're alluding to communism, EVERYbody's poor in communism.

  • How does someone like you,

  • who has such a nuanced and detailed knowledge of these issues,

  • start to break through those sort of

  • knee-jerk reactions from some

  • who would no doubt have that reaction when hearing what you've outlined so far?

  • What's the best path in to a productive conversation

  • with someone who reacts that way?

  • I think the first step is to start to expose the mythology the Western world

  • has ascribed to when it comes to historical communism.

  • Historical communism as practiced in the Soviet Union

  • was a particular niche,

  • a particular kind of central planning, a particular kind of authoritarianism.

  • And when people say this, they automatically

  • create a false duality between capitalism and then this other supposed

  • ideal of what communism is or was or was supposed to be.

  • And what it is or was or was supposed to be in terms of

  • communism or socialism or Marxism -

  • any of those terms that people want to throw out -

  • it's extremely counterproductive because there's very little

  • critical analysis or historical understanding of what actually happened

  • with those social systems or social approaches,

  • not to mention the grand ambiguity.

  • To even talk about what socialism means today is to

  • define it about ten dozen different ways, as I think you know.

  • So, I step back from that and I try to take a

  • train of thought perspective as opposed to a polarized one.

  • Just because something isn't market capitalism

  • doesn't necessarily mean it's communism,

  • so you start from that position.

  • And then you start to outline what it is in society

  • that's actually created the advancement.

  • And I wouldn't say things like economic growth

  • because that's a contrivance of market capitalism,

  • but what has actually improved people's lives?

  • What are the mechanisms that have led to higher standards of living,

  • to reduced child mortality,

  • to the current alleviation of poverty that's been slowly,

  • slowly getting a little bit better over the course of the past 60, 70 years?

  • And the answer to that is the application of design efficiency and technology.

  • And, as I get to the end of this book,

  • I hone in on those specific points that have actually underscored

  • the benefit of our economic efficiency:

  • benefited of us, in our public health and so on.

  • And I isolate those from the market,

  • and I want to encourage people to develop a new system

  • that harnesses those issues, harnesses

  • the amazing efficiency we've achieved

  • as human beings, as intelligent thinkers,

  • as opposed to this archaic system that is lost

  • in what's called the Malthusian period.

  • It's lost in this Malthusian, Machiavellian highly scarcity-driven world.

  • So I apologize, I've deviated a bit from your question.

  • When people approach me with the communist duality,

  • I pretty much just have to stop them and begin a long explanation that

  • what they're referencing is a false duality to begin with,

  • and that if you really want to get down to it, here's the train of thought.

  • Here are the attributes that have defined our society and made it better.

  • Why can't we simply amplify these attributes

  • without any of these ideological stigmas and interference?

  • And sadly enough, stigmas and labels and interference has been

  • a great way to dismiss a lot of these ideas over time,

  • so it's unfortunately a current that we have to

  • walk against still in the 21st century.

  • Let's pause there with Peter Joseph,

  • founder of The Zeitgeist Movement, author of the new book

  • 'The New Human Rights Movement'

  • and we'll pick it up in part two with the concept of scarcity

  • which you've spoken about a lot and is interesting to me

  • so we'll follow up there.

  • We're continuing our conversation today with Peter Joseph,

  • founder of The Zeitgeist Movement, also author of the new book

  • 'The New Human Rights Movement.'

  • We started getting into, Peter, this concept of scarcity.

  • And I want to talk about that in the context of market capitalism.

  • In many more micro ways you point out in the book,

  • for example with food production and hunger,

  • that the concept of scarcity and lack of resources to meet the needs

  • is essentially a contrived result

  • of how we've decided to allocate resources.

  • And you point out in great detail in the appendix to the book,

  • how not only food production and hunger could be solved

  • with current resources and technology,

  • but so could clean water and energy.

  • Let's maybe start and focus on food production and hunger.

  • Would you call this a decision that has been made effectively

  • by global society not to solve the problem of hunger?

  • Well that would inch into a kind of a conspiratorial view

  • which I don't subscribe to with any of this.

  • What I think it is, it's a cultural unfolding that goes back

  • hundreds of years, to before the late 18th century

  • and the start of the Industrial Revolution,

  • what some people call the Great Divergence.

  • Scarcity has been with society in a very visceral way

  • since the Neolithic Revolution 12,000 years ago when

  • we emerged from hunter gatherer tribes that

  • had a fairly abundant amount of resources

  • and a completely different type of lifestyle.

  • And then once settled agrarian society happened

  • it set a kind of geographical determinism so to speak,

  • something other theorists call cultural anthropology

  • if anyone wants to look that up, it's very fascinating.

  • And it set the framework for what we see as the market economy today.

  • You have property, you have capital, the means of production,

  • you have labor specialization, jobs, you have

  • the need for regulation, government, protection, law,

  • and so many other attributes like that which

  • codified the system we have at the moment.

  • And within that is the fundamental foundation

  • of the assumption of universal scarcity.

  • And it's become a political term because of

  • if you believe in anything other than a scarcity worldview,

  • then suddenly you can't justify the rampant competition that we see.

  • Suddenly you can't justify

  • eight people having more wealth than the bottom fifty percent of the world.

  • Suddenly you can't justify all of this imbalance.

  • And that's why scarcity has to be reevaluated in a very, very serious way.

  • And going to the food part,

  • we throw away half of our food right now on this planet, roughly, almost.

  • Half of the food produced on this planet

  • with all the energy and hydrocarbons

  • gets trashed because of inefficiencies in the pipeline

  • and a general belligerence of western culture at the same time

  • in our gratuitous materialism,

  • our lack of consideration of what's really happening in the world.

  • That's an unfortunate phenomena culturally in western society is we're,

  • we're blocked off. Anyway, so you have that already,

  • that we have the potential to feed the entire world,

  • we produce enough calories to feed the world more or less,

  • two times over.

  • And then you have the applied technology that isn't being utilized,

  • systems-based technology,

  • the incredible efficiency possibilities of vertical farm systems,

  • of engineered permaculture, of all sorts of advanced means.

  • For example if you localized food production,

  • and say, I'm in Los Angeles,

  • and we could localize all of our produce if we wanted to,

  • eliminating the fact that the average American meal

  • travels about 1500 miles

  • before it goes to your plate! Think about that.

  • Because of this horrid work of globalization,

  • which is about exploiting labor

  • in far distant lands along with resources.

  • So, we can do it with what we have today

  • and if you applied advanced technology that we have under our belt

  • but is not being funded or subsidized

  • or invested in to the degrees that are required,

  • we could easily create a total food abundance on this planet.

  • I can continue with the other...

  • - Well what I was gonna say, to stick with this example,

  • just to sort of see it through

  • so people can understand sort of your thought process with something like this.

  • What you're saying will make a lot of sense to most people

  • who are listening to or watching this interview.

  • And it will also seem like something that we should be taking more seriously

  • as a society, as a human race.

  • But what's the first step in starting to unwind the system we have?

  • We can do it through this issue of hunger just

  • because we've been talking about it.

  • How do you start? What's step one?

  • And we talk a lot, you know,

  • I'm reminded of campaign finance reform.

  • Everybody talks about campaign finance reform,

  • we've gotta fix how we finance elections,

  • here's ten different ways that it could be done.

  • Great! Our decision makers are in

  • because of the system that got them there.

  • Why would they change the system that got them there?

  • We're already at a sort of impasse.

  • So how do you start working against

  • such an establishment-incumbent system to make positive change?

  • Well at the core you need a galvanized community that wants it,

  • let's point that out first of all.

  • And without the educational work that needs to be done,

  • such as why the book was written, to see the potentials,

  • you can't get very far.

  • People still believe in general scarcity

  • as the politicized symbology it is that justifies

  • an unequal world that we have and we're not going to get very far.

  • But in terms of technicals as I mentioned briefly in what I said prior,

  • localization of food coupled with advanced automation,

  • technology we already have,

  • we could easily create local

  • the amount of food that's required without the need for transport.

  • I'm big on that. I think-...

  • I always maintain a global consciousness in terms of

  • recognizing the world as one systemic whole,

  • but at the same time there are good reasons to localize

  • and to make things regionally specific

  • mainly for the saving of efficiency, transport efficiency,

  • energy efficiency, and of course, distribution efficiency.

  • So if it was me and I was in a position of policy,

  • what I would do is create

  • large automated agricultural systems,

  • specifically vertical farms or other potentials but we'll just go with that one.

  • Those have tremendous efficiency potentials because

  • they can be built in industrial urban areas,

  • and they use very little water, resources and nutrients to produce

  • very high quality produce.

  • And you put those along the coast lines of Los Angeles, wherever you are,

  • you can put them anywhere ultimately and irrigate to them.

  • And then you basically do not import anything anymore!

  • You make it a basic localized mandate to create local food.

  • And if you do that,

  • you're gonna solve the poverty problem by extension,

  • then eventually, you make it free.

  • Once the automated systems are in place, you quotesocializeit.

  • I use that almost tongue in cheek,

  • but in the most traditional sense today

  • the term "socialization" means to make it publicly available

  • without the need for exchange.

  • And if you had a system doing that with minor subsidization

  • along with the technical efficiency that would maximize

  • the efficiency output along with reducing the amount of labor required,

  • you could do it.

  • And you would end poverty region by region through that approach.

  • Whether we're talking about the poverty or hunger example

  • or more broadly because you talk about so much in the book,

  • our criminal justice system, incarceration is another area

  • that you write about significantly,

  • are most people sort of thinking

  • too micro, even about solutions?

  • For example, Universal Basic Income.

  • This is something that, you know,

  • economist Richard Wolff for example talks about as

  • "It's something that would make sense within the current system

  • but it's not going to change the system we have

  • to one that makes more sense."

  • How do you balance

  • micro-approaches to fixing symptoms of our current system

  • versus activism towards changing the system more broadly?

  • Balance is an interesting word.

  • I'd say it's more of a progressive pattern that

  • pushes towards larger system changes through more micro-steps.

  • So Universal Basic Income is a step

  • towards the acknowledgment at a minimum

  • that the system we have is inefficient in its distribution.

  • That's something that just needs to be just blatantly plastered everywhere.

  • The reason we have inequality is because the system is simply inefficient.

  • That stands in the face of all those people that say "Well,

  • markets are the most efficient system we have ever had!"

  • Actually, you couldn't possibly come up with a more wasteful

  • and inefficient system than what we have today.

  • So Universal Basic Income coupled with

  • creating industries that becomesocializedonce again,

  • through advanced technological means,

  • are two steps that could lead us to transforming this society

  • in an incremental way.

  • And I want to point out, since you brought up Universal Basic Income,

  • because I know a lot of people that are big into this

  • and it's been on my mind,

  • there's one big flaw with Universal Basic Income

  • and this kind of in-system solution,

  • and that comes down to what's been termed by other historians as

  • capitalist contradictions.

  • What's happened since the 1970s specifically

  • is the credit expansion in the West has been outrageous.

  • It's because there's so much debt produced in the system

  • that people can't keep up, wages have stagnated.

  • So in order to keep money moving

  • in this kind of cyclical consumption economy that we have,

  • you have to give people money!

  • And what has been done with that is through credit expansion.

  • 43% of the American population spends more

  • than they actually take in every single year.

  • It's not just because they're flagrantly living beyond their means,

  • they have to keep up! They have to keep up with this system

  • that's effectively moving against them, something in the book I call

  • structural classism or structural bigotry in effect.

  • So, my point being is that

  • when you provide people with Universal Basic Income,

  • what you're really doing is satisfying a built-in inefficiency of capitalism

  • which will actually placate the capitalist system

  • if you don't have a larger view,

  • and I hope people understand what I mean by that.

  • Because you're giving people money that they can spend back into the system

  • which ultimately through the magic of structural classism

  • will trickle right back up to the upper one percent anyway.

  • Well that's the inherent ...

  • impossibility of the system we have. I mean when you look at credit,

  • you would only loan someone money

  • if you believe that in the future

  • things are going to be better for them such that

  • they could pay that back with interest, so on and so forth.

  • If you have a planet of limited resources and size

  • and some at least at this point, hypothetical maximum

  • population carrying capacity,

  • at some point that system is going to fail you, isn't it?

  • Well absolutely, if you're speaking about

  • credit as a general phenomenon,

  • keep in mind, we produce more interest in this system than money.

  • So the debt plus the interest that's created

  • exceeds the money supply of our entire planet,

  • which is basically a recipe for

  • bankruptcies and failures and more oppression of the lower class.

  • There's about $200 trillion right now in outstanding money,

  • excuse me, in outstanding DEBT on this planet, $200 trillion,

  • and there's only about $81 trillion in actual currency, in actual money.

  • So that disparity effectively translates into more repossessed houses,

  • more empowerment of the financial services sector and the banking system

  • because they're the ones that take that physical property,

  • hence the one percent and the elitism that we see today,

  • and so on and so forth. So no, it's not sustainable.

  • It's only sustainable from the standpoint of

  • the acceptance of social failure, acceptance of social inequality,

  • acceptance of social oppression and suffering.

  • And sadly enough,

  • people today have been so indoctrinated into that reality

  • they can't see beyond it, know what I mean?

  • No doubt about it. Now, thinking ahead,

  • it's such a 30,000 foot problem that I think

  • it's difficult for a lot of people to even conceive of that:

  • $200 trillion in debt, $80 trillion in money.

  • What eventually happens?

  • Well you have the boom and bust cycle as it's called,

  • which is really driven less by tangible innovation and so on

  • as is pitched in traditional economic workbooks,

  • and more by just the influx and outflux of money.

  • So you have periods of monetary expansion,

  • whether it's basic interest rates ... being lowered

  • that creates monetary expansion or when there's crises, they do QE and so on.

  • So you have that period of expansion

  • that creates more money into circulation

  • that goes into the production of goods,

  • into the hire of people and labor.

  • And then you build effectively more debt

  • because all money's created out of debt. (I hope you're aware of that,

  • that's one of the central problems underlying the market system.)

  • So all money's created out of debt with interest charge upon it,

  • and you produce two phenomenon. You produce too much debt,

  • you get debt saturation whether it's domestically or internationally,

  • and then you get inflation.

  • So when debt and inflation become too high in the boom-bust cycle,

  • that's when they contract interest rates

  • and that's when you start to see the real structural classism kick in

  • and that's where the failure happens.

  • Again, we accept this failure as though that's just the way it is,

  • as you know. It's really stunning

  • because the amount of suffering that happens on that downturn

  • is truly staggering.

  • During the 2008 Great Recession,

  • there were 500,000 deaths during that block of time

  • due to a lack of medical treatment

  • correlated to the Great Recession, for people that had cancer.

  • There were also about 46,000 suicides

  • across the United States and about 63 other nations

  • that correlated to it as well.

  • So this is a caustic deadly phenomenon,

  • and people don't perceive that structural violence

  • because they're detached from it, you know what I mean?

  • Everyone thinks of violence as you put a gun to somebody's head.

  • There is a whole painful level of violence

  • that happens from a structural imposition,

  • something Johan Galtung called, as I said, structural violence.

  • He's another individual of the Gandhi Institute I think people should look into.

  • If people really realized the violence that is happening

  • through things like the boom and bust cycle, through this debt system,

  • through just the inequality gaming patterns that

  • happen with capitalism and the fact that

  • if you have enough money and wealth,

  • you will continue to get more money and wealth and power.

  • So the social mobility has always been in question.

  • It's much worse today than it ever was and so on.

  • I often say, I fear for the day -

  • I both fear and long for the day, David -

  • where the general population realizes

  • the violence that's happening against them.

  • Because once they perceive that,

  • it's not going to be pretty.

  • The book is 'The New Human Rights Movement.'

  • We've been speaking with the books author, Peter Joseph,

  • also founder of The Zeitgeist Movement.

  • Peter, thanks so much for being on, I've been looking forward to this.

  • Absolutely David, I really appreciate your time.

  • Thank you for the great show, I always enjoy listening to you.

  • Thank you.

It's really great to be joined today by Peter Joseph,

字幕と単語

ワンタップで英和辞典検索 単語をクリックすると、意味が表示されます

B1 中級

ピーター・ジョセフ、デビッド・パックマンと「新しい人権運動」を語る (Peter Joseph on "The New Human Rights Movement" w/David Pakman)

  • 4 0
    王惟惟 に公開 2021 年 01 月 14 日
動画の中の単語