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  • [MUSIC PLAYING]

  • Welcome.

  • I'm David Kertzer.

  • I'm happy to welcome you to this event.

  • It's actually the first in a series of activities

  • that we've organized jointly between the Watson

  • Institute and the Population Studies and Training Center

  • as we explored initiative in political and demography

  • at Brown.

  • And our guest today is one of the most active promulgators

  • of that field and one of the most influential people

  • in that field, Jack Goldstone.

  • Jack is currently the Hazel Professor

  • of Public Policy at the School of Public Policy at George

  • Mason University.

  • He began his career teaching at Northwestern University

  • throughout most of the 1980s, then moved on

  • to University of California Davis,

  • where he was professor of sociology

  • and international relations from 1989

  • until 2004, when he moved to George Mason.

  • He's held a series of visiting positions.

  • I won't list them here.

  • I'll just mention last year he was

  • in Hong Kong involved in consulting

  • on forming a public policy program in Hong Kong.

  • But he held in-- let's see, what was it-- in 2011,

  • the Richard Holbrooke Distinguished

  • Visitor at the American Academy in Berlin.

  • And I hope you realize that Holbrooke was a Brown alumnus.

  • So we have some connection anyway there, however indirect.

  • Jack has won many awards for his work

  • and his publications, his books and articles

  • in political sociology, historical and comparative

  • sociology.

  • I won't go through those.

  • He's also been deeply involved in the application

  • of social science to the policy world

  • and has consulted for various US an international governmental

  • and NGO organizations.

  • Among his many important books, I'll just mention a couple--

  • Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World

  • that the University of California Press

  • published a number of years ago, then in 2008, Why Europe,

  • The Rise of the Western World History from 1500 to 1850.

  • So as you see, Jack thinks big, which we appreciate.

  • He's also, as I mentioned, the author

  • of a number of influential works on political demography

  • and promoting the further work in political demography.

  • I'll Just mention here his recent co-edited volume titled,

  • Political Demography, How Population Changes are

  • Reshaping International Security and National

  • Politics that Oxford University Press published.

  • His talk today, after which we'll

  • have the usual opportunity for questions, which I'll

  • ask Jack to handle directly, his title

  • is "A World in Revolution, the Inevitable Backlash

  • Against Global Elites."

  • Please join me in welcoming our guest, Jack.

  • Thank you very much, David.

  • And it's a real pleasure to be here.

  • I thank so many of you for coming

  • to this talk when you could be waiting for the latest

  • update on current events.

  • It seems like almost hourly there's something

  • that grabs our attention.

  • But I'm going to try and do the reverse here,

  • and that is to step back and place what's

  • happening in the world today in a longer-term context.

  • I actually thought about what might

  • be happening when I did the first edition of this book.

  • It's now out in second edition just last month.

  • It's called Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern

  • World.

  • But the argument that it makes, first,

  • is that population trends make a big difference in driving

  • cycles of instability.

  • But the bigger point is that cycles of political instability

  • are not driven by kind of a long-term movement

  • toward progress.

  • They're not driven by some inevitable conflict of forces.

  • They're driven by the ability of institutions

  • to adapt to the demands that we put upon them.

  • And I believe that for the last 20 or 30 years,

  • the institutions of the post-world War II global order

  • have been failing.

  • And so the wave of political changes

  • that we're seeing across the world now

  • should not be a shock, although some of the individuals

  • may command all the attention.

  • I think if Donald Trump had not become president,

  • I'd still be giving a very similar to today.

  • It might have been about President Sanders.

  • It might have been about something else.

  • But what we're seeing everywhere is

  • a collapse of what had been the mainstream political center.

  • So in France, the main political parties now

  • appear to be out of the race.

  • It looks like Marine Le Pen is going to be

  • one of the main protagonists.

  • And the other, Macron, is from someone

  • who started a new political party essentially

  • in just the last couple of years.

  • We've seen in Britain, the Labour Party go through

  • something of an internal collapse under Jeremy Corbyn.

  • They're losing constituencies they've never lost.

  • And yet the Tory Party itself was

  • driven into a kind of sudden disgrace with Brexit

  • that vote and David Cameron's sudden resignation from office.

  • So if you're a mainstream party politician these days

  • almost anywhere in the world, you're either

  • changing the dialogue yourself or you're

  • having it taken away from you.

  • So how did this come about?

  • Well, I actually wrote in the first edition of this book

  • about revolution and rebellion, there

  • was a chapter, now expanded for the new edition,

  • on the decline of the United States.

  • And what I wrote is that nations that

  • had been the richest countries in their day

  • and suffered fiscal crises because elites preferred

  • to protect their private wealth got into trouble.

  • The elites would separate into competing factions

  • and starve the national state of resources

  • that were needed for public improvements

  • and international competitiveness.

  • I wrote that factionalism within the elites paralyzed decision

  • making and struggles for prestige and authority

  • took precedence over a united approach.

  • Now I wrote that 20 years before we had the sequester.

  • But that was what we saw coming.

  • When you have struggles between different elite factions to put

  • their own interest in escaping taxation ahead of all else,

  • you cannot govern.

  • And the results are growing public debts,

  • even as private individuals become enormously richer.

  • And at the same time, basic public services

  • that support the economy as a whole

  • are neglected, overburdened, and deteriorating.

  • Now how did I see that coming?

  • This was written in 1991.

  • We had a baby boom.

  • The baby boom generation was moving into the workforce.

  • And one of two things were going to happen.

  • We were either going to greatly increase productivity, so

  • that the output of goods and services

  • would grow enough that taxation didn't have to expand

  • and the government would still be

  • able to provide all of the infrastructure and public goods

  • that a rapidly expanding workforce would need.

  • Or, and this is what I've seen in countries

  • that ran into revolutionary problems in the past,

  • you'd have a struggle in which the government would not

  • raise taxes as needed to keep up with this demographic change,

  • productivity would falter, wages would stagnate,

  • and incomes would become polarized while government

  • would become dysfunctional.

  • And that is what has indeed come to pass.

  • And I say the key element in this decay--

  • and people have sometimes said, well, this

  • is the decline of the West.

  • It's a decline of America's manufacturing.

  • We just have to fix this or that.

  • I don't believe that's true.

  • I think what happened was an erosion of public institutions

  • and public services.

  • And this decay threatens to undermine the foundations that

  • supported American economic growth for the first three

  • quarters of the century.

  • And I wrote, "If unchecked, the long-term results,

  • which are now only slightly apparent,

  • will be a relative decline in living standards,

  • freedom of decision, and international position

  • of the US."

  • Now, is the US still the most powerful country in the world?

  • Yes, I don't want to be accused of overstating or being

  • a decline.

  • However, the advantage that the United States

  • and particularly that the average citizen of the United

  • States has with regard to the global income distribution

  • has certainly deteriorated.

  • Now that was the a lot of text up there.

  • I won't do that again.

  • Don't worry.

  • We have shorter bullet points now.

  • So what happened?

  • We've seen rising inequality to be sure.

  • And a lot of people have pointed to that.

  • But I don't believe in equality per se is the social problem

  • that people think it is.

  • Why do I say that?

  • Because people judge their life opportunities in comparison

  • to the people they know.

  • They look at their families, their friends, their parents,

  • their children.

  • And that's where they judge, are things getting better or worse?

  • Frankly, it's irrelevant to them whether billionaires

  • have 95 foot yachts or 125 yachts or 150 yachts,

  • or whether they have gold fixtures in their bathrooms

  • or not.

  • What matters is, do they see their own lives getting better?

  • And that we have not seen.

  • Instead, in the last 20 years, we've

  • seen stagnant real incomes for about half of Americans.

  • The other half have still continued to move forward.

  • But about half of Americans have seen virtually stagnant incomes

  • and, this is important, a decline in social mobility.

  • Stanford recently came out with a new study

  • showing that the proportion of people

  • who could count on having higher incomes than their parents

  • has fallen from about 80% to 45%.

  • That is it used to be most people who did reasonably well

  • could look forward to living with more

  • resources than their parents and their children more than them.

  • And that was a great source of faith in the future.

  • But when it's now less than half of people

  • do better than their parents, and they're

  • worried that their kids may not do better than themselves, that

  • takes away faith in the future.

  • We have had a changing labor market.

  • And a lot of people talk about, well, you know,

  • we'll bring manufacturing jobs back,

  • or we'll train people for higher tech jobs.

  • It's actually more complicated than that

  • because we've had a shift in the nature of the labor market

  • itself.

  • The service sector is now dominant.

  • So Wal-Mart employs about 2 million people domestically.

  • All the major auto firms in the US

  • together employ about 50,000 hourly workers.

  • So what happens to Wal-Mart in terms of productivity

  • and wages, their labor force, that's

  • more of the exemplar of what's happening than what

  • happens to workers at General Motors or Cummins

  • or Caterpillar.

  • Service sector suffers from great difficulties

  • in raising people's productivity.

  • There are things that can be done, but for service jobs,

  • whether it's retail, food preparation, tourism,

  • medical care, even university teaching,

  • it's not as easy to simply amplify productivities

  • by adding power tools or by mechanizing processes.

  • It's true that I no longer have a secretary

  • since we have wordprocessing.

  • I have to do all my own correspondence and book

  • all of my own travel.

  • That saves the university a secretary.

  • But I don't think it makes me any more

  • productive as a teacher, as a faculty member.

  • So we've seen efforts to bring automation

  • to the social sector, but we haven't really succeeded.

  • And without rising productivity there,

  • the economy is in trouble.

  • The access that people have to what

  • I call the key public goods and social mobility goods

  • is constricting.

  • And we're having big debates about this obviously.

  • Health care, education, should we use the Affordable Care Act?

  • Replace it?

  • Should we go to vouchers or not?

  • Do we have adequate access to public parks?

  • Do we protect and provide adequate nutrition?

  • Can people live in safe neighborhoods?

  • These have all become gut instincts.

  • President Trump talks about them all the time.

  • People respond to a discussion of those things

  • because we can't take it for granted anymore.

  • We used to assume that the government would provide

  • decent public education, fair recreation, safe neighborhoods.

  • But all of these things have actually

  • become much more difficult for lower and middle income

  • families to attain.

  • And the result has been this great educational polarization.

  • We have these enclaves of higher education, high levels

  • of cultural capital, what people have called the protected

  • class, where people do live great lives.

  • I mean, you go to restaurants in New York, San Francisco, Los

  • Angeles, you need a reservation because they're

  • overflowing with successful, young professionals.

  • But you don't see that everywhere.

  • Less educated, less healthy people

  • voted for Trump, not because they have less education

  • or they know less, but I would say they know very well what

  • happened to them.

  • They have been left behind and disrespected by the knowledge

  • workers that have managed to stay ahead

  • in the kind of digital, high tech economy.

  • You can see this from the map.

  • The small number of counties that voted blue, Democrats,

  • it's very concentrated in those areas where knowledge workers

  • dominate the economy, but everywhere ,

  • else by and large for Trump.

  • And it's not just a question of income or education.

  • There was a story in The Economist

  • just last week about this Cummins Manufacturing

  • town, Seymour, Indiana, very low unemployment, high wages,

  • but voted overwhelmingly for Trump.

  • It's not just they're economically doing badly.

  • They're not.

  • They're doing well.

  • But they're concerned about the future of the country.

  • They're worried about whether their kids will

  • get the education to compete.

  • They're worried about whether America

  • will remain competitive with other countries in the world.

  • They're concerned about preserving

  • America's distinct culture.

  • And they're worried about, frankly, physical safety,

  • threats from terrorism.

  • They trust someone like Trump to cut

  • through what they've seen as political fighting,

  • factionalism, dysfunction.

  • And they say, Trump's a smart guy.

  • He'll figure out what we need to get America back on track.

  • Now why do they feel America has gone so off track?

  • This is a curve of income growth in different deciles

  • of the global income distribution.

  • It's called the elephant curve because if you

  • use your imagination, the right side of the curve

  • looks like the elephant's trunk up in the air.

  • And the left side looks like kind

  • of the backside of an elephant.

  • But what does it really mean?

  • If you take the entire population of the world--

  • China, India, Latin America, US--

  • and divide them up into the lowest, poorest 5% globally;

  • the next, the global middle of the barrel;

  • and then the very richest people in the world.

  • And you say for each of those groups, how much did

  • their income grow from 1988 to 2008, 20 years,

  • before the big recession hit?

  • Well, everybody knows that China and India

  • started to move into global supply chains.

  • Incomes in those countries went up.

  • So this kind of back of the elephant

  • reflects the globalization of manufacturing,

  • services, and very good income growth for developing countries

  • in those two decades.

  • The global elite, that is the richest people in the world,

  • whether they were oil barons in Saudi Arabia or Nigeria

  • or property owners in London or Manhattan or executives,

  • they also did very well.

  • They also had a similar level of growth.

  • But that kind of bottom of the elephant's

  • trunk, that represents the middle income groups in Europe

  • and the United States.

  • Now globally, that group was in the top 20%,

  • because the rest of the world, developing poor.

  • But although that group was high in income

  • compared to the rest of the world,

  • they did very badly in terms of growth.

  • That is real income for that group grew hardly at all

  • during those two decades, during which the very rich

  • were doing well and the global emerging working class

  • was doing well.

  • So this is a conundrum for people in that group.

  • Now part of that is, of course, related to demography.

  • If we see what happened to the key group

  • in the United States population, and this frankly

  • is the same curve largely if you look at Japan or Europe

  • as well, the '60s, '70s, and '80s,

  • the baby boomers entered the labor force.

  • And as the baby boomers entered the labor force,

  • there was a big demand for housing, furniture, education,

  • basic services.

  • There was an underlying demographic driver of growth.

  • When you add to that the fact that the baby boomers also

  • were the best educated group, that we

  • had a big expansion of tertiary education,

  • big expansion of cities, all of that

  • meant that there was just a very strong bias

  • toward economic growth, expanding opportunities,

  • and markets.

  • That all ended in the '90s.

  • Fertility fell back.

  • Growth in the number of young workers

  • and the number of young people starting families declined.

  • It popped up a little bit again, but not anywhere where it was.

  • And it's set to decline again for the next 20 years.

  • Now what this means is it's much harder

  • for people rooted in the domestic economy

  • to experience economic growth.

  • If you are working in the United States in a community

  • not plugged into the kind of global trade networks,

  • your market is no longer growing the way

  • it was '60s, '70s, or '80s.

  • Now if you're exporting to the developing world or you're

  • taking advantage of supply chains in the developing world,

  • then you can do very well because you're

  • marketing to billions of people and you're

  • drawing on the lowest cost supplies and labor.

  • But if you're providing local services,

  • even if you're a lawyer or a doctor or a dentist,

  • even if you're comfortably retired,

  • you're just not in a high growth area anymore by the 1990s.

  • Now add to that we're also seeing

  • at the same time as this economic slowdown

  • a big boost in immigration.

  • We're a country of immigration.

  • We like to say we've always been welcoming to immigrants.

  • But in fact, it's gone in cycles.

  • When the United States gets larger volumes

  • of immigration and from new sources,

  • there's generally been a tightening of immigration laws.

  • And we're going through a cycle like that now.

  • Brian Gratton has written a nice article on this.

  • We used to have huge flows of immigrants from Mexico.

  • That's basically stopped.

  • Net immigration from Mexico is now slightly negative.

  • Why is that?

  • Well, Mexicans have gone from having four children

  • a family down to about two.

  • The Mexican economy has improved and has

  • been able to take advantage of global opportunities,

  • not just NAFTA for Mexico to export to the United States.

  • That's true.

  • But Mexico exports to China, to Latin America.

  • Mexico's economy provides enough opportunities

  • for a slow growing population that there's

  • no longer this huge push factor or the even the huge pull

  • factor for the United States.

  • So most of the immigrants who come across the southern border

  • are now from central or South America, rather than Mexico.

  • Where we're getting immigrants still,

  • large numbers of immigrants, is from different parts

  • of the world.

  • It's much more varied--

  • immigrants from the Middle East, immigrants from South Asia.

  • My son is an engineering major and he's

  • one of the few Americans in his advanced engineering classes.

  • You probably all seen this, lot of Asians and Indians,

  • people from the Middle East.

  • They're willing to come here take engineering courses,

  • fail them, retake them, fail them retake them again.

  • It's not easy to get a degree in engineering,

  • but they're willing to do it because they

  • know if they get their degree, they'll

  • be able to work at home.

  • I joke about this.

  • I say that Americans are not willing to do

  • agricultural work.

  • They're not willing to do differential equations.

  • Both are too hard.

  • Computer science appears to be in the happy middle.

  • We have a huge expansion of Americans

  • doing software coding.

  • But at both ends, we're seeing a change.

  • And there's obviously difficulty for Americans

  • in getting used to the idea that larger and larger numbers

  • of people from unfamiliar areas are coming to the United

  • States.

  • In 1970, the US population was only 5% foreign born.

  • You may say, boy, that seems very low.

  • How is that possible?

  • Well, the answer is that there were immigration restrictions

  • that were fairly strong in place in the 1950s.

  • And the baby boom greatly increased the native-born US

  • population.

  • So 1970, tail end of the baby boom, 95% of Americans

  • were native born.

  • All minorities, Hispanics, blacks, others were only 16.5%

  • of the US population.

  • Now that's doubled.

  • And people's perception is often that minority populations

  • are even larger, because in some places they are.

  • In California, it's about 50%.

  • So depending on where you go, you

  • can see where people would have a sense that, oh,

  • my gosh, America's population is being overwhelmed

  • by immigration and minorities.

  • It's not literally true.

  • But in terms of the perceived change

  • in the last couple of decades, you can see why it's credible.

  • Similar in Europe.

  • Europe, Muslim population was probably less than 1%

  • in most countries in 1970s.

  • Numbers are so small, we don't actually have exact numbers.

  • Today, 40 years later, most European countries

  • have a Muslim population many times higher.

  • Still only 5% to 8%, about 8% in France, which is

  • the largest in Western Europe.

  • But people's perception-- and we've

  • had polls where we asked people, what do you think

  • is the perception of Muslims in your country?

  • And people say, 20%, 30%.

  • It's not accurate, but they feel it's true.

  • And that is what matters.

  • It is, however, especially true if you go out and look

  • at younger people.

  • Immigrants tend to be preferentially drawn

  • from younger males.

  • And the age of European and American societies

  • has been rising.

  • The Median age in the United States

  • has gone from 27 in 1970 to 36 couple of years ago.

  • So if you look around and say, what

  • are the young men in our society?

  • A larger proportion of them are immigrant or foreign born

  • than is the case for the population as a whole.

  • I hope I do know one a disservice.

  • I look in this room.

  • I see it is a predominantly Caucasian background

  • room, but also median age, relatively high.

  • I'm part of that myself.

  • So don't take it wrong.

  • I'm 63 now.

  • And I'm part of this group that hopes that, you know,

  • 80 is the new 60 when I get there.

  • But we are aging as a society.

  • And immigrants have been refueling our youth labor

  • force.

  • But the result is when people look around,

  • they do see more and more young people that look foreign.

  • Now, the large volumes of immigrants from new areas--

  • Muslim countries, Asia and Africa--

  • now this is driven in part by income convergence.

  • That is as other countries around the world get richer,

  • it doesn't mean that they're going to send fewer migrants.

  • It actually means more people have access

  • to the information and the resources

  • to become aware of the opportunities

  • for international migration and to take advantage of them.

  • It takes some resources, some ability to take risks,

  • and some skills and energy to be an international migrant.

  • Most people just migrate to the next largest city.

  • That's where they think--

  • to take the leap to another country is very risky.

  • And you need to have some resources to do that.

  • So what we've seen is as developing countries get

  • richer, the flow of international immigration

  • grows.

  • And it's driven in part by labor market needs,

  • to be sure, and in part by more open immigration

  • policies, the fact that we put a big emphasis on uniting

  • families.

  • So we have kind of welcomed this change,

  • but it's also been a shock to us.

  • Now this probably will get worse rather than

  • better in the future in the sense

  • that there will be more demands for people seeking to migrate

  • to the United States from unfamiliar areas,

  • and particularly from Africa.

  • What I've put up here is a graph of anticipated changes

  • in the global working age population.

  • And as you can see from that blue line,

  • the future really will be dominated

  • by increases in the working age population

  • in sub-Saharan Africa.

  • It's the one part of the world where fertility has not

  • dropped rapidly.

  • So if you're looking at India, mothers in India

  • are trying to have about two kids on average,

  • not much more than that.

  • In China, of course, under the one child policy,

  • they had less.

  • So China's population, which is the green line there,

  • has already started to decline.

  • If you look from 1950 to 2010, you say, wow,

  • it's all China and India.

  • But the future is going to be different.

  • Populations in China and India are

  • going to start to stabilize or decline.

  • And it's really going to be Africa.

  • Now in a way, that's a great opportunity.

  • You know, if we need young laborers to fill

  • all kinds of jobs, they exist.

  • The fact that we have an aging society

  • need not limit our economic opportunities.

  • But it does mean we have to look outside

  • for some infusion of fresh labor or integrate our economies so

  • that the American and European economies can benefit more

  • from growth outside their borders.

  • But oddly, what we want to do now,

  • it seems we want to close up our borders,

  • build walls, limit migration, and trap ourselves

  • with an aging and declining workforce.

  • It's one of those things that makes

  • us feel safer and more secure in the short term,

  • but is not a very sensible prescription

  • for our economic growth in the longer term.

  • And now these numbers can be a little disturbing.

  • I just put them up here to be suggestive.

  • Nigeria, this is total population, not

  • labor force growth.

  • But the numbers are pretty frightening.

  • Most countries in Africa can be expected to double or triple

  • in population in the next generation.

  • Why is that?

  • Largely because population growth rates are not

  • falling as had been expected.

  • It turns out that we've put a lot of effort

  • into improving primary education and literacy that has worked.

  • We've put a lot of effort into trying to raise incomes,

  • and that has largely worked.

  • But it turns out that in Africa, where there's still

  • a desire for large families, if women leave school at age 12

  • after finishing primary school, they still get married young.

  • They still have lots of children.

  • They still don't have much control over their lives.

  • It hasn't changed the fundamental demography.

  • That will require changing women's access

  • to secondary education and professional jobs, which

  • has happened increasingly elsewhere in the world,

  • but not very much there.

  • So these projections suggest that countries like Nigeria,

  • Uganda, Niger, will have populations

  • in the tens or hundreds of millions

  • looking for work in the future.

  • Nigeria's population will be larger

  • than that of the United States probably by 2040.

  • Uganda's population, which is only 33 million

  • a few years ago, will likely be around 100 million

  • within a few dozen years.

  • China, on the other hand, which we've kind of worried

  • about as the great rising power, the great threat to the world,

  • their population is now falling rapidly.

  • And they may be in a period where they're

  • trying to get whatever gains they can

  • before they're forced into dealing

  • with their own domestic crisis from falling labor.

  • Now how do people look at what happened?

  • What do people see?

  • They see that for the middle class, the working class,

  • and not just working class, people in services,

  • but people who are kind of earning the $30,000 to $60,000

  • a year that was a really good income in Europe in the US

  • in the '60s and '70s people in that section

  • have seen the rich in their countries get much richer.

  • They've seen people around the world

  • who were previously much poorer than themselves

  • get much richer.

  • But they've gotten stuck.

  • We've stopped making progress.

  • And so, of course, they're going to ask what is holding us back

  • when everyone else around us, rich, poor, foreign, domestic,

  • seems to be doing well?

  • They can certainly see that there's great economic energy.

  • The new firms are all founded in a few places, Dallas, Houston,

  • LA, Miami, London.

  • But the rest of the country economically

  • does not seem to have that dynamism

  • that you find in those core metropolitan areas.

  • So how do people look at this?

  • Well, they answer simply, people that are getting rich

  • are taking what should be ours.

  • If we're not sharing--

  • if the world is growing and everything

  • seems to be getting better for other people, but not for us,

  • someone is getting in our way and taking what is ours.

  • We're being tied down by international agreements that

  • weaken and drain us and don't benefit us.

  • This international trade things seems

  • to work for everybody but us.

  • So others, minorities, global elites, foreign powers, that's

  • who's winning.

  • We're not.

  • And the experts and governments have not helped us at all.

  • They only help themselves.

  • And that is an accurate view of the world

  • as viewed from the perspective of about 50%

  • of the populations in developing countries.

  • It's not a myth.

  • It's not a misunderstanding.

  • It's not a failure of elites to communicate.

  • It is, if anything, a failure of economic and political leaders

  • to recognize that the benefits of economic growth

  • and globalization were being very

  • concentrated in a few areas.

  • Now it's certainly true that if you're going to have

  • a revolution, it cannot just be an uprising of the unhappy.

  • We saw that with the kind of we are the 99%,

  • which petered out very quickly.

  • If you're going to have a revolution,

  • you need elites to lead it, dissident elites who

  • see themselves as enemies of the status quo

  • and who are going to be champions

  • of the popular movement.

  • And we have those anti-liberal elites for sure.

  • You have a lot of people who they're

  • living in a world of positional goods, that is you say, hey,

  • if you're a billionaire, what do you care about wanting more?

  • But that's not how things work now.

  • Even if you have $10 million, $50 million, $100 million,

  • you're competing for homes, art, travel, experiences,

  • even at the very top level, you're

  • always competing with other people who have more.

  • And so it seems like no matter how much money you have,

  • it's never enough.

  • You can be earning $10 billion and you're

  • worried if your taxes go up from 10% to 20%,

  • you're not going to be able to do what you wanted.

  • And so anti-liberal elites feel they are being held back

  • in a web of regulations, transfers, excessive taxes,

  • international agreements.

  • And they say, we want and deserve more

  • because we've earned it.

  • We built companies.

  • We've acquired real estate.

  • We've accumulated wealth.

  • And it's wrong for anyone to say that we

  • need to share it or take it or pile regulations on.

  • Anything that interferes with us increasing our profits

  • is somehow wrong headed.

  • Now elites with that view are willing to make common cause

  • with a broader population that has

  • become steeped in anxieties.

  • That is people who feel they're not safe.

  • They worry about exaggerated, perhaps, fears.

  • But they still worry about crime and terrorism.

  • They worry that their national identity and culture is not

  • safe due to immigration and foreign trade agreements.

  • And, of course, from their perspective,

  • their economic future is not safe,

  • because social mobility and cross-generational gains

  • have been threatened.

  • So if you say why is there a movement for Brexit

  • or a movement to support someone like Donald Trump or a movement

  • to reject the EU in France, it's not just one thing.

  • It is more complicated.

  • It's a coalition in a sense of people who feel

  • economically disadvantaged, people

  • who feel that their culture is threatened by immigration

  • and change, who feel that the wave of terrorism or crime

  • is going to grow and is not being stemmed, whether it's

  • coming from immigration or from just a breakdown in law

  • and order.

  • And although you could say these fears are exaggerated,

  • they're real.

  • These comparisons that say you're

  • more liable to slip and die in a bathtub

  • than be killed by a terrorist reassure

  • no one because the threat of terrorism

  • is not a statistical risk that you can somehow

  • treat as a number.

  • Terrorism means there are people out there who have the intent

  • to do harm to people in Paris, people in New York,

  • people in Atlanta.

  • Wherever you are, terrorism is a threat from enemies

  • and therefore is completely different than like a risk

  • of being in a car accident even.

  • People view it as a directed threat,

  • and they want someone to do something about it.

  • I would argue that the result of all of these things coming

  • together-- threats to culture, threats to economic progress,

  • concerns about terrorism--

  • have combined to create a global revolt against the elites

  • that people feel have let them down.

  • The cry is you haven't done enough to secure

  • my economic future, but you also haven't

  • done enough to protect the integrity

  • of our national culture and our national identity.

  • You haven't done enough to make me

  • feel safe from the terrorist threat

  • despite all the troops that were sent overseas

  • and the money that was spent.

  • So the foundation for this revolt

  • was laid by the failure of elites

  • to comprehend how these multiple threats were impacting people.

  • Dissident elites who also feel that the system was not

  • working for them, they have their enemies.

  • Their enemies are this open world, multiculturalism,

  • the lack of clear moral rules.

  • And their goal, and this is true in Turkey, in Russia, in China,

  • as well as in Europe and the US, is to recover national control.

  • People want control of their borders.

  • They want control of their culture.

  • They want greater security.

  • They want to win self-respect and recover honor

  • in a sense for their livelihoods, their work,

  • and their country.

  • Now I argue that this actually is best understood

  • as a revolutionary movement.

  • It's not just an argument about policy.

  • It's not just, well, you know, we'll cut taxes here,

  • we'll have job retraining here.

  • That doesn't resonate with people's emotional feeling

  • that their very identity and future is under threat.

  • And that's where we get into this notion of this

  • is a revolutionary moment.

  • There is actually a coherent ideology

  • behind all of these disparate movements.

  • If you look at what President Erdogan is promoting in Turkey,

  • what breaks it promised, what Trump promises,

  • there's a strong emphasis on nationalism against globalism.

  • We're going to make our country great.

  • And you know, our country is important.

  • Russians have pride in Russia's larger role in the Middle East,

  • even though pensions and salaries are being reduced.

  • Nationalism still matters.

  • We didn't ban nationalism somehow

  • at the end of World War II when we founded the United Nations.

  • Nativism becomes part of this.

  • People are concerned if their nation and their identity

  • is under threat, then foreigners are somehow to blame.

  • People want toughness.

  • They're tired of expert talk.

  • They're tired of prescriptions that

  • don't seem to lead anywhere.

  • They want a strong leader, someone

  • like Duterte in the Philippines who says,

  • I'm going to kill drug leaders.

  • I'm not going to have programs to rehabilitate them.

  • I'm going to shoot the bastards.

  • And that has a lot of appeal.

  • Anti-internationalism is part of this feeling,

  • that we have to solve our own problems

  • because the international system just

  • drains resources and undermines what we're doing.

  • But it's also oddly anti-government.

  • Why is that?

  • How can people want to have nationalism and toughness

  • and yet be anti-government?

  • Well, the answer is if you depict government

  • as a bunch of corrupt bureaucrats

  • who line their own pockets, spew out rules that interfere

  • with other people's lives, and have no interest in protecting

  • people's livelihoods, have no interest in protecting

  • the nation, that their allegiance is

  • to some kind of abstract global elite,

  • you want to get rid of them.

  • They're part of the problem, not the solution.

  • Now you may want a government that has strong defense ,

  • so you're going to put more money into the military.

  • And you may want a government that will be tough on crime,

  • so you'll put more money into police and border patrol.

  • But you want to get rid of the government

  • officials and programs that just seem

  • to be gumming up the economy.

  • And that's the kind of program that's

  • part of the ideology we have.

  • It's anti-government, anti-regulation, anti-taxation.

  • The irony, of course, as I said, we got into this mess

  • because resistance to taxation helped starve

  • the public goods that would have provided people

  • with more economic opportunities in the first place.

  • But the nature of a revolutionary reaction

  • against a dysfunctional government

  • is not that people calculate out,

  • well, what do I need to do to perhaps change

  • the situation that got us into this mess?

  • That's not what you see.

  • In revolutionary movements, you see emotional recruitment that

  • is based on people's anxiety.

  • And you promise a simple solution, because that's

  • what people are hungry for.

  • We obviously had 20 years of elite factionalism

  • and dysfunctional government that turned people off

  • to government.

  • And we now have mass mobilization by slogans,

  • where elites are depicted as criminals and traitors.

  • Now you've probably heard a number of people

  • have picked up on this.

  • They say, populists present themselves

  • as the voice of the people.

  • Only I can speak for and save the people.

  • And that is the kind of most common revolutionary trope

  • that we've seen through history.

  • We are seeing it now in the advanced democracies

  • of the West.

  • Revolutions also almost always come as a surprise.

  • People in France in 1789 did not say, oh,

  • we're overdue for a revolution.

  • People in Germany in the 1930s didn't say, well, of course,

  • you know, we needed a strong man to take over.

  • Countries get into situations where

  • people hope that institutions will work,

  • but then the institutions fail and let people down.

  • And that creates the opportunity for a strong man type leader

  • to emerge.

  • In hindsight, you can usually see it coming,

  • but when it happens, it's almost always a surprise.

  • So typical revolutionary processes,

  • this is kind of what this book was all about.

  • It all seems very familiar now.

  • Revolutionary movements appeal to those

  • who are angry about blocked mobility, excessive taxes,

  • government dysfunction, and what they

  • see as cultural inauthenticity.

  • The attack on Obama as a foreigner, in a sense,

  • kind of prefigured all the attacks

  • we seen now on foreigners as enemies and so on.

  • It's typical that revolutionary leaders say,

  • this leader is not an authentic French person or not

  • authentic champion of Britain.

  • They have foreign interests and are dangerous.

  • So typically revolutionaries will attack the media,

  • build revolutionary truth, and label anyone else as traitors

  • to national values.

  • Sadly, this often involves particularly attacking women.

  • So in the Arab Spring, it was the wife of Ben Ali in Tunisia

  • who took the brunt of the abuse for being

  • the embodiment of corruption.

  • In France, Marie Antoinette who was basically not political

  • at all, nonetheless got dragged down

  • through various scandals that were essentially

  • false narratives of corruption.

  • There was a story about a diamond necklace

  • that Marie Antoinette had essentially stolen.

  • In fact, there was a criminal plot to take a necklace,

  • pretend it was a gift for the queen,

  • and sell it off in England to get money for the courtiers who

  • were involved.

  • But Marie Antoinette was blamed for this.

  • And in a sense, poor Hillary Clinton

  • was damned over and over her corruption and criminality--

  • lock her up-- and again, if you're familiar

  • with the history of revolutions, picking

  • a woman who seemed to be going too far

  • or who somehow embodied what you hated

  • is what revolutionaries do.

  • Charles the First, King of England,

  • he was attacked for having a Catholic queen.

  • And it was imputed that he was a closet Catholic, didn't really

  • deserve to be king.

  • Similar attempt to discredit Obama through the birtherism.

  • This is not normal politics.

  • It's one thing to say my opponent

  • is a corrupt scum ball, my opponent

  • has policies that are absurd.

  • It's another thing to say these people are criminals, traitors.

  • When the Assistant Attorney General

  • disagreed on the immigration policy,

  • Trump labeled her as having betrayed the Justice Department

  • of the United States.

  • This is the language of revolution.

  • It forces an us versus them outlook.

  • The immigration order was justified

  • as vitally necessary to protect us

  • from all the people coming in.

  • And it's necessary to overturn normal procedures and rules,

  • replace them with extreme decrees,

  • target enemies, exalt friends.

  • Competence matters less than loyalty in such situations.

  • And it's necessary to act fast because you want to try

  • and change everything at once.

  • If you're making a revolution, everything

  • has to be overturned and changed.

  • A lot of us are concerned about this.

  • We see some of these as a revolutionary movement

  • in the United Kingdom, in France, the United States.

  • We don't want it to go, say, as far as things

  • have gone in Turkey where a popularly elected leader

  • at the head of a major national party

  • has systematically purged the judiciary,

  • had his friends buy out the media,

  • has eliminated opponents in journalism

  • and in the universities, certainly don't want anything

  • like that to happen here.

  • So what is to be done?

  • The short answer is discouraging.

  • We're looking at the result of long-term pressures

  • that have been building up for decades.

  • We've had a surge in immigration.

  • We've had major increases in inequality

  • that had the effect of leading to stagnation

  • and blocked social mobility and, frankly, declining rewards

  • to low and middle skilled work.

  • Now these are the results of demography and institutions.

  • You can't just blame this on someone

  • like Trump coming along.

  • I tell people Trump is the symptom not the disease.

  • The disease has been festering for decades.

  • People are fed up and angry.

  • You've heard this over and over.

  • I'm not telling you anything new.

  • They want to break the system because they

  • feel it's strangling their future

  • and leaving them unprotected.

  • If you look at the polls now, you'll

  • see that, oh, Trump isn't very popular and so on.

  • But the people who support Trump,

  • Republicans is one proxy for it, although that's not accurate.

  • Trump does have support from independents as well.

  • But Republicans still support Trump about 80%.

  • And what's particularly frightening is

  • if you look at the polls that ask, who do you believe more,

  • the media or the White House?

  • Republicans, it's about 75%, 80% believe the White House

  • more than the media.

  • Democrats and independents, it's about 75%

  • the other way believing the media.

  • So we're becoming a country that can't agree on basic facts,

  • can't agree on who is credible.

  • It's almost two different countries

  • that consume two different media viewpoints

  • and have two entirely different attitudes.

  • And so if you're a Republican in Congress

  • and you see that Trump has 80% support among Republicans,

  • you have to support whatever he does.

  • What choice do you have?

  • That's what your constituents are telling you they want.

  • So in a sense, you can't simply say

  • that there's some easy way out.

  • Trump will make a mistake, the Republicans or independents

  • will come over.

  • I don't believe it's that simple.

  • People really are fed up.

  • They want change.

  • And they're willing to tolerate a lot of messiness

  • in order to do that.

  • That's how revolutions are.

  • And I also have to tell you, again,

  • from reading the history of revolutions,

  • that counterrevolution usually doesn't work.

  • If you have a genuine popular movement

  • with committed elites at its head

  • and you don't have a strong overwhelming force,

  • if you can't isolate the revolutionary leaders,

  • doesn't matter.

  • So blocking, carping, acting like we're

  • somehow smarter or have the real answers will not work.

  • You're looking at a popular movement based

  • on emotion, led by elites who want to break and transform

  • the system.

  • That's difficult. So what can one do?

  • The first thing is to embrace the revolution's supporters.

  • It really bothers me when I see people criticizing Trump

  • supporters or supporters of Brexit as people,

  • oh, they don't understand their own interests,

  • they're not educated, they're easily taken in.

  • That's not fair.

  • It's really is necessary to embrace

  • the people who want change and recognize

  • the validity of their concerns.

  • Yes, there are bigots.

  • There are unpleasant people who are on the Trump bandwagon.

  • That's true.

  • But that's not a majority.

  • That's not the people who took someone who you would think

  • is completely implausible as a candidate and not only

  • made it close but actually got him elected.

  • And as I've said before, I mean, yes, the election was close,

  • but I take no comfort in that, because it shouldn't even

  • have been close unless people really wanted a radical change.

  • And frankly, Clinton did not easily

  • do away with the threat from Sanders,

  • if not for the super delegates, which

  • was kind of an elite system to prevent

  • an insurgency within the Democratic Party,

  • Clinton might not have won the nomination.

  • And indeed, the fact that a lot of Sanders supporters

  • were so turned off by that and sat on their hands

  • was important for Trump's victory.

  • So everywhere you look, there is deep opposition to the status

  • quo, to politics as usual.

  • So embrace the supporters of that.

  • And it's necessary to show there are real solutions that

  • give people hope, dignity, and value their needs.

  • People want health care.

  • Maybe the Republican plan will offer that.

  • Maybe it won't.

  • But whoever comes up with a real solution that

  • makes people feel confident for the future

  • is going to get political support.

  • So show that Trump's solutions or his extreme solutions

  • won't help people, but actually might

  • make them poorer or less safe, and you may start to chip away

  • at his support.

  • But just criticizing Trump or criticizing his supporters

  • won't do the trick.

  • And it's necessary to be realistic.

  • Obamacare is in trouble.

  • It was never properly completed.

  • There are demographic forces with an aging population

  • and rising costs of health care that need to be dealt with.

  • Social security and Medicare are OK,

  • but they are facing trouble down the road too,

  • and a lot of state and local pension systems particularly.

  • You can't just pretend that everything will be OK.

  • We need to find practical solutions and solutions that

  • will work for everyone, and not just for the poor,

  • not just for the rich, but really try and treat

  • America as very diverse, but everyone needs to benefit.

  • I think the core needs are education, health, jobs,

  • and respect.

  • It's easy to give respect to people,

  • but we often don't do it.

  • It's harder to provide jobs for people,

  • but the best way to provide jobs is to have a growing economy.

  • And the best way to keep the economy growing

  • is to keep it open, because other parts of the world

  • are poised to grow faster than the United States.

  • So those two parts are relatively easy.

  • Health care is complicated.

  • When Trump said, who knew that health care was so complicated,

  • the answer is, well, we all did, which

  • is why it was very tricky to work on.

  • But we need to figure out ways to improve delivery and access

  • to health care.

  • And education, we're here in one of the great universities

  • of the world.

  • America has the greatest universities in the world.

  • But it may not have them forever if we can't continue

  • to attract the best people from all over the world

  • and if we can't provide the type of primary and secondary

  • education to maximize the talent that we have here.

  • I don't think vouchers are the answer.

  • But it is very clear that we have an educational system,

  • that compared to other educational systems

  • in the world, has much greater variation than it should.

  • The best students in America are still the best in the world.

  • But the range of variation in achievement in America

  • is also greater than most other countries.

  • And that handicaps us going forward.

  • If people felt that their needs in these areas

  • were being addressed, I think they'd

  • be much more comfortable.

  • Now the worry is if moderate measures fail,

  • revolutions usually go in more radical directions.

  • So if the only thing that opponents to Trump do

  • is block programs so that nothing

  • gets done for another four years,

  • we might end up with a more radical alternative

  • on the horizon.

  • Things are never going to go back to the way they were.

  • We're not going to have another baby boom.

  • The US is never going to be much richer

  • than all the other countries in the world.

  • We've got to kind of come to terms with living in a more

  • balanced world, but also give Americans confidence

  • that they will have a leading role in that world.

  • I think Obama tried to do that quietly,

  • but there were too many failures in practice.

  • That elephant curve with half the population

  • falling backwards relative to the rest of the world, that

  • undermined all the good plans.

  • I think it's important to focus on processes and laws.

  • It's not worth fighting every battle.

  • What's really important is to focus on preserving

  • the Constitution at all costs.

  • That's what has made America exceptional.

  • It's kept our government flexible and resilient.

  • And the idea that we can somehow solve our problems by not

  • paying too much attention to constitutional niceties,

  • just let the strong man get on with it,

  • that's what undermined democracy in much of Latin America

  • and Asia in the last 50 years.

  • So let me wrap up by simply saying, eventually we'd

  • like to change the demography, support education

  • in women in Africa.

  • We're not doing that.

  • We're just letting that run on its own.

  • We need to improve international institutions

  • and get prepared for the immigration

  • pressures and environmental disasters that

  • are on the horizon.

  • We may need to limit refugees, provide more support in place.

  • We certainly need to restore social mobility and access

  • to public goods.

  • I think the European Union also needs to be saved,

  • and right now we're walking away from that as well.

  • Finally, one needs to recognize that whether it's

  • Trump or Le Pen or Wilders, it's not a passing event.

  • These people are just the messengers.

  • We really need to think about rebuilding institutions that

  • have failed, whether it's our educational system,

  • our health care system.

  • And we need to tell people, there

  • may be some short-term sacrifices required in order

  • to get to the future that we all deserve

  • and not to simply say, we can fix things easily

  • just by beating up on someone, foreigners, immigrants,

  • global elites.

  • Exerting strength may feel good in the short run,

  • but it's actually laws and institutions that

  • keep us safe in the long run.

  • And figuring out how to rebuild our laws and institutions,

  • so they work for everyone, not just the rich,

  • not just those who are benefiting from this

  • or that program, but really everyone

  • is the big challenge we face.

  • Thank you very much.

  • [APPLAUSE]

  • And I'm happy to take questions.

  • Yes, ma'am.

  • Excuse me, we have some microphones here,

  • if you could use them.

  • I will ask you to please wait for the microphone helps

  • everyone hear you.

  • Next question that I can give this to next.

  • Gentleman in the back, please.

  • Thank you, Professor Goldstone.

  • I'm an historian of the Ottoman Empire.

  • I'm a first generation immigrant from Turkey.

  • And so this was very close to my heart in a variety of ways.

  • And I've benefited from your work

  • on the comparative early modern states.

  • This very week, my students at Brown is reading you.

  • So that's in much appreciation.

  • But I have two points to comment on and ask you to perhaps help

  • me understand some of the contradictions

  • in understanding this as a revolution.

  • I think you're correct in that I would agree with you,

  • but much of what you've described

  • that came up to the point of this revolution

  • now is neoliberalism.

  • And so it's a consequence of neoliberalism

  • that we are dealing with.

  • And so in that sense, it's very easy

  • to understand it as an anti-liberal revolution.

  • But at the same time, the very way that it is happening

  • or the various suggestions you have up here are

  • still neoliberal.

  • So how are we going to reconcile that?

  • And secondly, this is on a more negative tone--

  • you've made many references to Turkey and Erdogan.

  • I think we have tried all of these past 10 years,

  • and that's what I've been saying to my colleagues

  • and friends in this country since Trump became president.

  • Unfortunately, it has not worked.

  • Embracing has not worked.

  • And may I add, embracing is also neoliberal.

  • I'm an academic in Turkey.

  • I was an academic in Turkey.

  • And so I used to be blamed for supporting Erdogan.

  • Now I'm paying very, very highly for it--

  • not personally myself.

  • But a large part of the elite actually supported,

  • educated elite, supported Erdogan's openings.

  • But after the 2015 election electoral results

  • which started all this--

  • Let me ask you to wrap up, so that I can

  • get other questions as well.

  • Yeah, yeah.

  • So it hasn't really worked.

  • Fair enough.

  • And embracing is neoliberal as well.

  • So we have to find something else.

  • And I'm hoping you have the answers.

  • Thank you.

  • All right, the first point you make,

  • resolutions have changed throughout history.

  • So there have been peaceful, color revolutions.

  • There have been violent, ideological revolutions.

  • There have been pro-democratic revolutions.

  • They've been anti-democratic revolutions.

  • So the methods by which the revolutions unfold a lot.

  • You say liberal means are being used to transform things.

  • Yes, elections are sometimes used

  • for people who retain power who later become authoritarian--

  • Marcos in the Philippines, now Erdogan in Turkey.

  • And even now in Hungary, Hungary is still a free country

  • for the most part.

  • You can come.

  • You can go.

  • But the press has been domesticated.

  • The judiciary has been intimidated.

  • So you can have a moderate curtailment that kind of

  • protects people who are corrupt and in power and kind of closes

  • off options.

  • So yes, you can use neoliberal methods in a sense

  • to undercut much of liberalism.

  • So what do you do?

  • How do you how do you oppose this?

  • I think in Turkey very early, it was clear

  • that there were attacks on journalism and journalists

  • that were highly disproportionate and worse

  • than anywhere in the world, except China.

  • And I was always amazed that Europe,

  • NATO partners, the United-- why wasn't there

  • more denunciation of this?

  • Why wasn't the Turkish government called

  • early in account?

  • Why was this just treated as, oh, well, that's just OK?

  • It was not OK.

  • And it turned out to be the beginning

  • wedge of the government being will

  • able to manipulate what voices were heard

  • and what news got out.

  • So I think what we see in history

  • with populist movements, authoritarian movements

  • is you have to stop the early attacks on truth,

  • freedom of speech, courts.

  • If you don't stop those attacks, then the momentum

  • shift to the other side.

  • People put their heads down and say, well, I'm

  • going to do my job.

  • I think things will be OK.

  • I'll go about my business.

  • But it drains away to the point at which you

  • can have an event like the coup that failed and tips, things

  • altogether.

  • So I would say in this country, I

  • was worried about the attacks on the press,

  • the abuse of the truth, the accusation

  • that all political opponents are traitors.

  • Those are the things you have to stop and pushback against.

  • And so far here, those have worked.

  • Now, we'll see.

  • It's still very early days.

  • But we want to make sure that the FBI stays neutral,

  • that court decision to listened to,

  • that reporters are not intimidated,

  • that people continue to be able to get subscriptions

  • to The New York Times and Washington Post

  • and not suffer for it.

  • So those are the things that I think we need Sir.

  • It's sort of a followup to what professor just said.

  • But both of your last two slides propose

  • things that are pretty much in total opposition

  • to the Republican agenda.

  • So that they're unrealistic now.

  • We can implement these.

  • And as she pointed out, we've been

  • trying to implement some of those in the past

  • and it hasn't worked.

  • Also, given the support that Trump still

  • has among Republicans, even for what

  • strike me is slightly non-constitutional,

  • like the freedom of the press and so forth, my question

  • is at what point is Trump going to become the status quo?

  • And at what point are his supporters going to desert him?

  • Buyer's remorse, when it's going to set in?

  • He's thrown them some sops on immigration and so forth,

  • but on the critical issues of the economy, health care,

  • and education, I believe he is going to fail.

  • So at what point, do you think--

  • I mean, I'm asking for a prediction-- but at what point

  • do you think that this thing's going to fail

  • Well, I'll go back, my second to last slide, the very last point

  • was let bad policies fail.

  • So on some issues, you're right, we you,

  • we-- whether it's Democrats, liberal opponents--

  • we can't implement policies now.

  • We may not even be able to block bad policies.

  • But that may be OK.

  • Rather than continuing a futile fight, let bad policies fail.

  • But be prepared with better alternatives.

  • And that's where these measures of come up

  • with better, longer-term solutions and plans,

  • when we have the opportunity, it's

  • important, because otherwise we'll be in the same situation

  • again.

  • Now how long do I think this will take?

  • I don't know.

  • It may be that by the end of this year,

  • investigations will turn up some undue ties between Russia

  • and Trump that may undermine him.

  • But then if he steps aside and Pence takes over as president,

  • things may not fundamentally change.

  • Maybe by the midterm elections people

  • will be frustrated with failed promises

  • on health care and the economy.

  • Maybe not.

  • There's worry that we may have a military confrontation

  • in the South China Sea that will distract people.

  • There may be a terrorist attack somewhere in the US

  • or in another of our allies.

  • So I don't put a timetable on this.

  • What I do think is that the policies being offered

  • by Republicans will not respond to

  • the fundamental economic, public goods

  • desires of their followers.

  • They are responding to the kind of

  • nationalist, strongman feeling.

  • And that may be enough for a while.

  • We will see.

  • One thing we've learned about populism in Latin America

  • is it can be very durable.

  • So people in Cuba endured a stagnant economy

  • for a long time because they felt at least the Castros were

  • standing up to the US and that made

  • Cubans feel they could stand a little bit taller.

  • So if Americans feel that Trump is giving us

  • pride in our country again, even if the economy

  • is not doing what we hoped, it may

  • take four years, eight years.

  • We'll have to see.

  • Microphone.

  • And Dietrich in back.

  • Thank you.

  • I find the portrait you paint very compelling.

  • The causal story still feels a bit vague to me in part

  • because you attribute the global revolution

  • to demography and institutions.

  • But the institutions are spelled out and made very precise.

  • And in listening to the account, I

  • can't help but think that the two big exceptions

  • to this story among high income OCD countries

  • are both coordinated market economies--

  • Germany, where Merkel is under threat not from a right wing

  • populist party but from the FPD being led by a Eurocrat,

  • and Japan, where the LDP is incredibly powerful.

  • And it strikes me that Germany might imply that demography

  • is not destiny and Japan might imply

  • that demography is actually endogenous to politics.

  • And then really we need to take the political institutions more

  • serious.

  • That's a fair question.

  • It's not the institutions per se,

  • but the growing lack of fit between institutions

  • that were designed for demographically growing

  • economies in a world where North hemisphere was dominant,

  • now dealing with a world where economies

  • in the developed world are aging rapidly,

  • immigration forces have grown, global income is being balanced

  • out, and our institutions do not make us

  • feel strong and confident in this world.

  • Now, is Japan an exception?

  • No, Japan has become more nationalistic and militaristic

  • also.

  • They're basically-- sorry, this was

  • bad placement for this microphone

  • if I talk with my hands.

  • So I'll just do that.

  • Japan had a defense force that was barred from an active role.

  • And they have felt is not appropriate.

  • And they are training to have a more active military.

  • Abe has been criticized for visiting

  • the shrines of war heroes.

  • The only reason to do that, of course,

  • is to project strength as a nation.

  • So, yes, Japan is, I would argue, going this way.

  • It hasn't seen an anti-immigrant movement

  • because Japan has been rigorously

  • anti-immigrant for decades.

  • But it probably will come because they're now

  • facing such labor shortages, especially in elderly care,

  • that they're betting on robotics.

  • They have cute little robot baby seals

  • that old people can hold for comfort.

  • But they are recognizing that they need to do something

  • to restore the labor force.

  • And that's going to lead to clashes in the future.

  • So the timing is a little different

  • given Japan's peculiar national culture.

  • but the same trend, growing nationalism,

  • anti-immigration, and so on.

  • Germany is a bit different because having

  • been through the crisis of World War II,

  • there's a strong national conscience there

  • in which elites have not been as vigorous in attacking

  • the liberal state and international institutions

  • as elsewhere.

  • And you're right that Merkel has been a stabilizing force,

  • the opposition have been more mainstream.

  • But you know, next door in Austria,

  • things swung very strongly.

  • Germany's been a little more insulated.

  • They had the success of integrating

  • East Germany, which gave people a lot of confidence.

  • And frankly, Germany has done a better job

  • of training its labor force and maintaining

  • its exports and the kind of middle industries

  • than other countries.

  • That's not sufficient by itself, but it's

  • part of the explanation.

  • We'll see what happens in the Netherlands, which

  • has also done well economically, but has felt more under siege.

  • And you know, again, the anti-immigrant fervor has not

  • gotten as far, but if anything takes Merkel down,

  • it will be anxiety about immigrants and preserving

  • German character.

  • So I think you're right to say it's not as simple as I've

  • made it seem, but I think if you allow

  • for individual national histories,

  • you still see the same broad trend everywhere.

  • Part of the refrain of your analysis

  • was these people think this way.

  • They may not be right, but it matters anyway

  • that they think this way.

  • That is a very weak basis for revolution.

  • If I look at your evolution as they actually happened,

  • they happen somehow, yes, they are not very easier foreseen.

  • But they're very implemented, very soon

  • with a combination of internal violence or violence

  • against other nations and nationalism.

  • The last with the French Revolution,

  • the first with Nazi revolution, the communist revolution

  • in Russia and the communist revolution in China.

  • So that means you can predict this for the United States,

  • assuming that either the new government that we have now,

  • the so-called presidency, either goes for international war,

  • which would be a disaster, but it could be internally support.

  • Or it is trying to impose repression

  • inside the country, which has not very

  • good prospects for them.

  • Well, the question really is about how

  • violent this process could be.

  • It could become more violent.

  • I mean, we've seen already an increase in hate crimes,

  • in anti-Semitic vandalism, shootings of Sikhs,

  • other minorities.

  • This could conceivably get worse if, say, for example,

  • there was a terrorist attack and Trump

  • uses that to heighten people's feeling of carnage, anxiety,

  • we're under threat.

  • When the National Socialist rose to power,

  • they relied on a high degree of street

  • fighting that they kind of fomented between the socialists

  • and the nationalists.

  • And they took advantage of that by saying,

  • our cities are breaking down, we can restore order.

  • Now this is exactly what Trump has said.

  • He has exaggerated the degree of crime in Chicago for one case.

  • He has looked for other examples, but in 45 days.

  • I do worry that things could get worse.

  • And it's necessary to be vigilant.

  • So as I say, I think we're seeing an effort at revolution.

  • Revolutions take a long time to unfold.

  • They're not today, tomorrow.

  • But I see us on a pathway that departs from what

  • has been the usual politics of Democratic and Republican

  • Parties, or other mainstream parties anywhere.

  • We're seeing kind of an attack on the whole system

  • as we've seen it.

  • Now I hope we'll be resilient.

  • But I'm not assured.

  • We'll have to see.

  • Other questions?

  • Is there another question that we can get the mic to.

  • Over here.

  • Jack, thank you for the great talk.

  • I especially appreciate your opening slide

  • and all the quotes from 1991, which prove very prescient.

  • And you suggested that much of this

  • had to do with political demography at the time.

  • And I'm not contesting that, but I

  • want to suggest maybe a complementary explanation

  • and have you react to it.

  • The other big thing that happened in 1991

  • was that the Soviet Union collapsed.

  • And social psychology tells us a lot

  • about how othering is important in identity formation,

  • both for individuals and for nations.

  • And my suspicion, and I've been writing about this recently,

  • is that the disappearance of the Soviet Union

  • had significant short-term and long-term consequences

  • for the United States.

  • And that disproportionately affected the Republican Party,

  • that the Republican Party was long

  • the party of being tough on anti-communism.

  • And suddenly that went away.

  • And so the narrative there I think

  • turned to a different kind of other,

  • which has ultimately become kind of Washington elite as that.

  • And so I wanted to test that hypothesis.

  • Well, I embrace that.

  • I don't see it as a criticism at all.

  • There's even a section in the new edition of the book that

  • follows that view.

  • What I say is that if we look back

  • at what happened at the end of World War I,

  • the allies were victorious.

  • They thought they had managed to fight

  • the "war to end all wars."

  • And they were now free to impose their will on the world.

  • Britain and France took over the empires

  • of the defeated countries.

  • They tried to chop up Turkey.

  • And Germany was burdened with heavy reparations.

  • And in the economy, people threw a party with the roaring '20s.

  • But they didn't really lay the solid institutional foundations

  • to rebuild the world after the devastation of World War

  • I. They left things very unbalanced.

  • And as a result, there were revolutions in a sense

  • in Germany and Italy.

  • The mess of the empires remained.

  • And by the 1930s, the economy had

  • gone through another crisis.

  • And autocracy had re-emerged.

  • I see something very similar in the Cold

  • War, that the Cold War, my friend, Frank Fukuyama

  • announced the end of history.

  • Undue optimism.

  • I understand where he was coming from.

  • But it was wrong to think that ideological forces,

  • like nationalism or even fundamentalist religion,

  • had somehow been banned.

  • They're part of human nature.

  • You need institutions to balance those feelings.

  • Instead of developing new institutions

  • at the end of the Cold War to kind of integrate

  • former defeated foes, we pushed NATO up

  • to the borders of Russia, figured,

  • oh, everyone will fall in line.

  • We have the formula now, Washington Consensus.

  • And kind of weaknesses in our system,

  • high variation in educational provision,

  • problems of what happens to Social Security and Medicare

  • if the population changes, they weren't addressed at all.

  • Instead, we just went forward, assuming

  • everything would be OK.

  • And now we find ourselves in a kind of Cold War II,

  • with Russia and China asserting themselves,

  • authoritarians presenting themselves

  • as having the solutions to the leftover

  • residue of issues that weren't solved at the end of the '80s.

  • So I think you're absolutely right.

  • And it's part of the context in which we

  • failed to adapt our institutions because we thought we'd won.

  • And in fact, we only gained a temporary advantage.

  • There was one more question.

  • Sir.

  • I'm interested in your comments on what you had described

  • as the disrespect that the revolutionaries feel from

  • the elites and probably what the elites feel is

  • an anti-knowledge, anti-rationalism viewpoint from

  • the revolutionary quarter--

  • rejecting climate change, rejecting so many things

  • because they are knowledgeable those statements--

  • how does that play out?

  • How do you overcome that?

  • You know, we agreed that Hillary Clinton made it

  • a deplorable comment.

  • But other than that, I mean, it's

  • very difficult to deal with someone who says

  • facts and reason don't matter.

  • Yes.

  • Look, it's a very complicated sociological question.

  • I think Charles Murray has actually

  • done a kind of good job in showing people how the United

  • States in particular has divided up into different zip codes,

  • with not only different income levels, but different levels

  • of marriage, out of wedlock birth, educational achievement,

  • different job groups.

  • And there's actually decreasing knowledge

  • from people who live in the privileged zip

  • codes of what matters to people in other areas.

  • Now if we go back not that far know to the time

  • when we accepted--

  • America, we've got working classes.

  • We have middle classes.

  • But everybody kind of considers themselves middle class.

  • And people went to the army together.

  • They went to school together.

  • They lived in cities together.

  • You ran into people.

  • And that's just less so now.

  • And what people who used to be able to have pride

  • in manual labor as providing a good living

  • and providing dignity and support for a family,

  • they lost that.

  • Men who had skills that were valued

  • find those skills no longer provide.

  • They can still get a job in the service sector.

  • But it's not a job that gives them

  • a higher income than women or enough to provide for a family.

  • And they feel devalued.

  • And what's the alternative?

  • Well, if they could say, OK, you know,

  • things didn't work out for me, but I

  • know that my kids, if they work hard in school can do well,

  • that's an outlet.

  • But now, if you are working in a farm or former factory town

  • and trying to get your kids into just a middle level state

  • university, they're still competing

  • with kids who are foreigners, kids who are children of elites

  • who get special preparation, special backgrounds, minorities

  • who still get advantages in certain kinds of admission,

  • even musicians or artists.

  • And it's not free anymore.

  • I mean even state college tuition has gone up

  • to where it's expensive.

  • So it's easy to feel that the world is closing in on.

  • We used to count and the government

  • used to provide ways for us to get ahead.

  • And they don't do that anymore.

  • Everything is becoming more difficult, more competitive,

  • more complex.

  • Now how do you give people a sense

  • of feeling that they're valued?

  • Listening to them, including them in your travels, events.

  • The fact that Hillary Clinton didn't even

  • visit a lot of rural areas was a slap in the face.

  • De Tocqueville talked about the French elites

  • before the French Revolution, which

  • he knew very well because he was one of them, and he said,

  • you know, it was the most amazing thing to me

  • is the French aristocrats would have

  • all these discussions about the unfairness of taxation,

  • the problems of the poor, inequality.

  • And they acted as if the people they were talking about

  • had no ears and didn't hear that their problems were very

  • severe, and they're being told this and reinforced this,

  • but nothing was being done about it.

  • The elites acted as if this was all

  • an intellectually challenging problem,

  • but not a real concern.

  • And gosh, that sounds a lot like what we've had here.

  • So I think the example is when AIDS struck the United States,

  • first it was treated as the fault of deviant communities

  • for their deviant behavior.

  • And when it was treated that way,

  • we made no success in treating it.

  • And the people who were vilified for being responsible,

  • got angry and engaged in protest behavior.

  • When the medical community said, hey, we

  • need to have people from the gay and lesbian community

  • represented, and we need to have people work with us on building

  • solutions, the problems were solved better,

  • people felt recognized and respected,

  • and everything worked out.

  • And so I think that kind of just going out

  • to communities, including people in the solution,

  • putting people on advisory boards, working with them

  • is a simple step.

  • But elites thinking that they can devise answers

  • in think tanks and offer these solutions is not going to work.

  • I mean, sometimes if you say I've got something completely

  • different, let's try it, people will say, OK, let's try it.

  • Nothing has worked, OK, fine.

  • But that doesn't work either.

  • You really need to make everybody part of the process

  • to get solutions that work.

  • So I think that's where we have to go.

  • [APPLAUSE]

  • [MUSIC PLAYING]

[MUSIC PLAYING]

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革命の中の世界グローバルエリートへの必然的な反発 (A World in Revolution: The Inevitable Backlash against Global Elites)

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    王惟惟 に公開 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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