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[00:00:00] Okay, a second... Look, don't attribute to me your conventional views of what, quote, a conservative believes, because I'm not a conservative. I'm a believer in freedom.
[00:00:16] Well, then I'd like to talk about that using an example, freedom. In Ohio, an old man failed to pay his electric bill. You may be familiar with the case. And the electric company turned off the electricity and he died.
[00:00:29] The reason they turned it off was because it wouldn't have been profitable for them to keep it on because he didn't pay his bill.
[00:00:36] Now, if you go to the other extreme and adopt a policy that the electric company will always, will never turn anything off, then you effectively institute a system under which the only people who will pay for electricity will be those who pay for it voluntarily.
[00:00:50] Now, the number of people who will do that... Mr. Friedman, are those the only two alternatives?
[00:00:52] No, but I'm just showing you, I want to go, you've gone to one extreme, I'm going to the other extreme and show you that where the responsibility really lies for the kind of thing you're describing.
[00:01:02] The responsibility really lies not on the electric company for turning it off, but on those of this man's neighbours and friends and associates who are not charitable enough to enable him as an individual to meet the electric bill.
[00:01:16] This is the Debunking Economics Podcast with Steve Keen and Phil Dobby.
[00:01:23] And therein lies the problem. That is Milton Friedman talking about the importance of self-interest for capitalism to work.
[00:01:31] That is, until someone is disadvantaged, then he favours charity, not government because he wants that to be small.
[00:01:38] He wants charity to fill in where capitalism fails. So for capitalism to work, we need charity.
[00:01:45] But what happens if that man isn't liked by his neighbours? Doesn't have any friends or associates? Does he just die then?
[00:01:53] This week we look at personal choice. Milton Friedman is a believer in freedom, he says.
[00:01:59] And that, to his belief in freedom, could be why that man was left to die.
[00:02:04] Is it the weak link in the argument for capitalism? This argument that you have freedom to choose.
[00:02:09] What if there is no choice? What then? That seems like a good place to start.
[00:02:13] That's this week on the Debunking Economics Podcast.
[00:02:21] So in a nutshell, self-interest works to the point where someone has to step in and act totally out of self-interest.
[00:02:26] I think Milton Friedman might have lost the argument there, don't you?
[00:02:29] But it's interesting, isn't it, Steve? It just shows how selfishness supposedly drives the economy,
[00:02:34] but obviously it doesn't work that well.
[00:02:36] But we are also bound by the idea of personal responsibility.
[00:02:40] So we have to take ownership of our actions if they impact the life or the lives of others.
[00:02:46] So if I commit a crime, for example, that impacts others, I will go to jail.
[00:02:51] Society makes sure that that works. They are the checks and balances.
[00:02:54] But if I make a decision to make money in a way that's going to impact others,
[00:02:59] like maybe I run an electricity company and I overcharge the electricity to a point where no one can afford it,
[00:03:03] and people start to die, that is fine.
[00:03:07] Is that a double standard?
[00:03:09] That's a can of worms the size of the Statue of Liberty, I'm afraid.
[00:03:12] And that's part of the problem because we have a society where we fundamentally argue that we have individual freedom
[00:03:21] and the sort of the Lockean idea is that you're able to do whatever you do as long as you don't affect somebody else.
[00:03:27] It detrimentally, who's a third party, there's not party to the process you're involved in.
[00:03:33] But that was, I think, something which suited what Bill and Moore used to call the cowboy economy
[00:03:38] with wide open spaces and whatever you did didn't have feedback effects that affected other people,
[00:03:46] let alone feedback effects that affected you detrimentally.
[00:03:49] You got the direct effect of whatever you were trying to achieve.
[00:03:51] And that world, if it ever existed, is long gone.
[00:03:54] So everything we do has an effect on somebody else.
[00:03:58] And the Lockean idea about how we can just say basically, you know,
[00:04:01] you can do whatever you wish to do as long as you don't detrimentally affect others.
[00:04:05] I think it's partly why we're detrimentally affecting everybody else at the same time.
[00:04:10] And we've got this idea.
[00:04:12] We're in a world that doesn't apply to anymore.
[00:04:13] We've got this idea that, you know, Milton Friedman pushed out that we are all motivated by greed.
[00:04:20] And the, you know, the motive is to is to make profit.
[00:04:24] And yet we had an example there of, you know, someone who that doesn't apply to.
[00:04:28] And, you know, and it's all gets down to free choice, supposedly.
[00:04:31] But for those people who are on subsistence level incomes, they don't have a choice.
[00:04:38] It's not a question of greed or the profit motive.
[00:04:41] For them, the only driver is survival.
[00:04:45] Our problem is that we have completely inappropriate ideology
[00:04:50] for a completely inappropriate society for the planet on which we're living.
[00:04:53] And I just find it ridiculous.
[00:04:56] We're going to go back and always have this referential point of, you know, Friedman's attitudes or locks as well,
[00:05:02] where Friedman is lock on steroids fundamentally.
[00:05:05] It is just we are no longer in a world in which decisions by one person don't affect other people.
[00:05:12] It's the, it's, this is the whole point of looking at things in a system dynamics point of view,
[00:05:17] at the aggregate level, everything you do has a feedback effect.
[00:05:22] And now we're seeing a world, particularly with, of course, climate change being the fundamental manifestation of that,
[00:05:29] where the feedbacks are overwhelming.
[00:05:30] The feedbacks actually dominate what the direct effects might be.
[00:05:33] So we, we, we don't have a framework which lets us decide,
[00:05:37] well, we don't have an accepted framework which lets us decide, you know,
[00:05:41] how to be independent within the overall framework of all being interdependent.
[00:05:45] And we have to allow, we have to allow people to be able to make their own decisions though, don't we?
[00:05:49] And that's the…
[00:05:50] To some, to some extent.
[00:05:52] But the thing is though, those, you know, we, we have an unbounded definition of freedom.
[00:05:58] This is the problem.
[00:05:59] We live on a bounded system.
[00:06:01] That's the problem again.
[00:06:02] So the context in which we think we can make unbounded decisions is one which unbounded decisions are no longer possible.
[00:06:09] Right.
[00:06:09] So here's the example then.
[00:06:11] If I smoke all my life and as a consequence of that, I have very poor health or maybe I, you know, I don't exercise.
[00:06:20] So I become a, a cost to everybody else on the healthcare system.
[00:06:26] Is that fair on everybody else?
[00:06:28] Again, this is one of the, you know, simple illustrations is it's not possible to think in that, in that sense.
[00:06:36] You know, again, that's not even taking into account, you know, passive smoking or contagious diseases, pandemics and so on and so forth.
[00:06:45] But there are, we, if we don't think in a systemic way and that fundamentally Friedman's way of thinking is not systemic.
[00:06:51] Friedman's way of saying you're isolated.
[00:06:54] It's a bit like a classic line in the life of Brian.
[00:06:56] You are all individuals.
[00:06:58] And somebody says, no, I'm not.
[00:07:00] Well, that's true.
[00:07:01] None of us are.
[00:07:02] We're all part of a collective.
[00:07:03] That's the, I think I'd rather have John Donne than lock any day.
[00:07:06] And that is no man and it's an island.
[00:07:09] And therefore you have to think about, you know, how much decision making is feasible in a world in which we all affect each other.
[00:07:15] And you do, I mean, one of the beauties of capitalism is the fact that people can decide to innovate in the system and change how things are done.
[00:07:23] And that's an essential part of what's been a creative system.
[00:07:27] But there are, the damage that creativity is now doing shows we've gone beyond the bounds that are sensible.
[00:07:34] We need to set overall parameters that make, say, this is a scale of society and a scale of interactions, which is feasible for an onlasting society.
[00:07:47] But if you have a definition of freedom, which means your behavior ends up destroying the society, then your definition of freedom is wrong.
[00:07:54] But the problem is, if you say, well, okay, it needs to be bound in some way, you're into politics straight away as to how you define where the boundaries are.
[00:08:04] What's important?
[00:08:05] What are the consequences that we need to be aware of and how we take away individual freedoms?
[00:08:10] So it's a very hard thing to do, isn't it?
[00:08:12] And to get consensus on that, virtually impossible.
[00:08:15] So that is the problem.
[00:08:17] That's a problem of democracy.
[00:08:18] Yeah, but again, I'm just getting far more cynical.
[00:08:21] If that's even possible, as I get older about the Western definition of democracy,
[00:08:26] and we're seeing this farce taking place in America, you know, God knows who's going to win.
[00:08:33] But in no way are the choices expressing what people want in the aggregate in this society.
[00:08:42] And I remember having a great conversation with Kevin Rudd's brother, in fact, about his experience in politics through working with the ALP and also working in China.
[00:08:52] And he said that he describes what we have as democracy is a bit like when you're told you're going to be given the job as chief executive of a company, and you run the board.
[00:09:01] But there's also going to be a parallel board, run by somebody else who hates you, who's going to be staying all the time to undermine the decisions you're making.
[00:09:08] And that fundamentally is the nature of politics we have.
[00:09:11] We have left side and the right side.
[00:09:12] And I'm using literal left and right in the sense that it was first defined in the Paris assembly after the French Revolution.
[00:09:20] And that's what gave us our nature of politics.
[00:09:22] And we have basically two opposing ideologies shouting at each other, both trying to undermine each other.
[00:09:29] And over time, they've both become dominated by a neoliberal perspective as well, which has been an attempt to get a unifying vision.
[00:09:36] But they still snipe at each other.
[00:09:38] It is not a coherent way to run a society.
[00:09:43] And particularly, when you look at the political system by which we select people, we're basically selecting narcissists.
[00:09:49] You see?
[00:09:49] Which narcissist would you like to run the system this time while they're following the same fundamental neoliberal ideas in terms of what's happening in Western political systems?
[00:09:58] So it is utterly ineffective at both defining sensible limits and choosing how those decisions are made in that system.
[00:10:07] Right. And that decision, supposedly, you know, if we believe this ideal world that economists like to think that we live in, those decisions are based on rationality.
[00:10:17] They are rational decisions.
[00:10:18] But it's very rare that we actually see a rational decision made by government.
[00:10:22] It is normally just whatever they need to do in the short term to try and win votes, which is making sure you're telling the uninformed something that matches their intelligence level and doesn't delve down deeper into actually what the root cause of a problem is.
[00:10:37] Indeed, like even economic theory has fallen over itself by trying to define how do you make decisions in a way that is beneficial for the individual and beneficial for society.
[00:10:48] And what they've come to it on as a definition of a rational person is somebody who has an accurate model of the future.
[00:10:53] And that's why they say, you know, so long as you follow rational behavior, everything will be fine.
[00:10:58] And how you define rational, well, you understand, you can prophesize the future accurately.
[00:11:02] That means there have been two rational people on the planet, whoever you think is God and Nostradamus.
[00:11:07] Right. But I mean, but they're making a rational decision based on what they think might happen based on the information they have available.
[00:11:14] I mean, no one has a clue about what's going to happen in the future.
[00:11:16] Exactly. Exactly.
[00:11:17] But they can take pointers or they can take advice.
[00:11:20] They can talk to economists, unfortunately.
[00:11:22] People are going to tell them, well, yeah, well, this is how we think things are going to be in a year's time, for example.
[00:11:27] But we think, you know, interest rates are going to be much lower house, you know, which means you'll be able to afford a bigger house.
[00:11:33] You know, there'll be more jobs available.
[00:11:35] So you'll be able to get a bigger salary.
[00:11:37] You know, people take all of this advice and then think, well, OK, that's the way the world's going to be in a year's time.
[00:11:41] I'll make a decision based on that.
[00:11:43] I'm going to have more money in a year's time.
[00:11:44] I can afford to buy a house.
[00:11:46] I'm going to save up and I'm going to buy it.
[00:11:48] You know, you and I'm going to adjust my spending habits according to what I've been told what to expect in a year's time.
[00:11:53] Now, interest rates probably will be lower in a year's time.
[00:11:57] You know, they can't be up forever.
[00:12:00] So, I mean, people can make short-term decisions, can't they?
[00:12:02] They can make short-term decisions, but they're making it in an uncertain environment where they feed those decisions feedback on other people.
[00:12:08] So the total of the American idea of libertarianism and then that, you know, you should be not constrained in your decisions as long as they don't affect anybody else,
[00:12:19] that is actually a recipe for saying, well, you can't make any decisions at all because everything affects everybody else.
[00:12:23] So, again, even if you're at one extreme or the other, you've got to disregard the interconnections and the complexity of our society.
[00:12:31] Or if you take it into account, that starting point means you wind up saying you can't make a decision at all.
[00:12:38] So, we are leaving so many deadly legacies out of this society for the future.
[00:12:45] For example, what are called the forever chemicals, which I think some of them actually relate to little things like, you know, sticky notes.
[00:12:54] The chemicals are such that they don't degrade.
[00:12:57] They won't degrade by biological processes on the planet.
[00:13:01] The only way to get rid of them is tectonic forces, pushing them down into the mantle and they get broken down by extreme temperatures there.
[00:13:09] It's everything we do has a long-term consequence.
[00:13:12] And we need to have a systemic way of thinking about – and a systemic and evolutionary way of thinking about what decisions we enable people to have.
[00:13:23] And you have to always say, you know, I can't see this civilization surviving.
[00:13:29] I've got to say what a pessimist I am these days.
[00:13:31] And it will be because of this idea of unbridled individual action, which has justified a range of decisions about how much to produce, what to produce, and the overwhelming damage we're doing to the biosphere.
[00:13:48] So, if your definition of freedom ends up destroying the civilization that you expressed that freedom in, it wasn't a good definition of freedom.
[00:13:55] So, you talked about innovation though.
[00:13:58] So, that's got to be part of it.
[00:13:59] So, we've got to have the choice to innovate.
[00:14:01] If we take away all freedoms, then nobody's going to be in a position to say, well, I think this is the opportunity.
[00:14:09] And by the way, when they're saying that, they're thinking they are seeing the future, aren't they?
[00:14:13] I mean, innovators see their vision of the future and they go, okay, well, you need to give them the freedom to be able to innovate based on their vision of what the future is going to be, which obviously is a future they want to change.
[00:14:24] I think the problem is all this stuff is self-referential humans only.
[00:14:28] This is the problem.
[00:14:28] We're trying to define how we behave in a context which we only take into account the opinions of bipedal aches.
[00:14:37] When, in fact, and we then at the same time, say we're the intelligent species on the planet.
[00:14:42] And frankly, I'm on with the dolphins here.
[00:14:44] If you know Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
[00:14:47] You know, it is – if we're intelligent, then heaven help.
[00:14:53] I think it would be better off to be stupid given what we've done, what we're doing to the sustainability of life on this planet.
[00:14:59] I think what we really have to see is forget about this idea of seeing ourselves in terms of our freedom to act this way and freedom to act that way.
[00:15:06] If we truly regard ourselves as the intelligent species on the planet and we know how rare – we know actually – we know life is so rare in the universe that at the moment we know one place where it happens and that's where we happen to be standing.
[00:15:17] And so if we truly see ourselves not pointing it back to ourselves and saying that we should have freedom to act as we wish, we should be acting to sustain life.
[00:15:28] That should be the basic –
[00:15:30] But who makes those decisions?
[00:15:32] If we're not able to have complete freedom, if decisions are made for us because we can't be trusted in making decisions because of the consequences of those decisions, who is making the decisions?
[00:15:43] I think about – do the calamari get a vote in this issue?
[00:15:51] We're on a height into nothing to come up with an unworkable framework if we're totally oriented around what is the freedom of an individual human to act.
[00:16:02] When we – one of my long-term perspectives about this planet is the knowledge we've accumulated about the universe tells us that life on this planet has about 500 million years.
[00:16:14] Before such time as the expansion of the sun, before it gets to a red giant will probably make life impossible on this planet.
[00:16:21] So if we really care about life and we know there's only one spot in the universe where it happens, then our responsibility is to maintain life.
[00:16:28] And then every decision we want to make, the question is, does it enhance that or does it damage?
[00:16:32] And if it does damage, how much damage does it do?
[00:16:35] Is it unsustainable?
[00:16:37] Is this thing which is going to be – can you trade off in some sense?
[00:16:43] Like for example, if we're going to maintain life indefinitely in the universe and regarding ourselves as part of the universe rather than just part of planet Earth,
[00:16:53] then at some point we've got to find a way of having sustainable civilizations off the planet.
[00:16:57] That probably means being a fair bit of damage to the biosphere at the moment, trying to get out of the gravity well of planet Earth.
[00:17:04] And then you say, well, the decision is worth it because it's on that direction that we'll be able to maintain life indefinitely.
[00:17:11] And so unless we see ourselves as servants rather than masters and servants of life rather than masters of life,
[00:17:18] then we're never going to get a realistic framework for deciding how individuals should act.
[00:17:23] It's you and Elon back on Mars, isn't it?
[00:17:25] I read an article.
[00:17:26] Yeah, I mean, sorry.
[00:17:26] He's a guy that's a twerp.
[00:17:28] He knows nothing about the body economy.
[00:17:29] He's irritating the hell out of me with his stuff on – he's as bad as Rachel Reeves in terms of his nonsense on government having to spend within its means, et cetera, et cetera.
[00:17:39] So he's a typical Asperger's type.
[00:17:42] He's incredibly bright in some areas and dumb as a dodo in others.
[00:17:46] But, you know, they might get us off the planet.
[00:17:48] So I'm willing, in that particular case, I'm happy to grant him the freedom to try.
[00:17:52] Yeah, I mean, we've had this conversation before.
[00:17:54] If we get off the planet, there's really no point in existing.
[00:17:56] But I just read an article from a biologist saying the problem is bloody engineers.
[00:18:00] They feel like they're the answer to everything.
[00:18:02] And it was a biologist saying, by the way, if we did live on Mars, we wouldn't be able to procreate.
[00:18:07] We wouldn't be able to – well, on two cats.
[00:18:09] The number of people that he's talking about, you'd need many thousands more to be able to grow a population.
[00:18:17] Because I think he was looking at 100 or 200 or something.
[00:18:19] You need thousands to grow a population.
[00:18:21] It doesn't start with Adam and Eve.
[00:18:22] So the numbers need to add up.
[00:18:24] And then the other side of it was we probably would find, actually, at that level of gravity, we wouldn't be able to procreate.
[00:18:29] If we actually managed to get the seed into the womb, it probably wouldn't come out as a baby at the end of it.
[00:18:36] Because gravity just doesn't – you know, there's not sufficient gravity.
[00:18:40] So there's –
[00:18:41] That's where I read Jeff Bezos' idea of right by the car and the all cylinders generating an artificial gravity.
[00:18:48] You know, something like that.
[00:18:50] It's a lot of effort to maintain mankind, isn't it?
[00:18:52] Let's get back to – just very quickly.
[00:18:53] We'll take a break.
[00:18:54] Otherwise, we're going to destroy ourselves.
[00:18:56] So what's the choice?
[00:18:57] Well, yeah.
[00:18:58] And we will destroy ourselves on that planet as well, by the way.
[00:19:01] I mean, what's changed?
[00:19:02] But the – so what you're saying, though, I think – in fact, let's leave it.
[00:19:07] We'll take a quick break, and then I'll ask you what you're saying.
[00:19:09] But I think what you're saying is one person makes all the decisions.
[00:19:12] We'll come back in a second.
[00:19:13] It's the Debunking Economics Podcast.
[00:19:14] No, I'm not.
[00:19:15] Me and Steve Keen.
[00:19:16] Back in a second.
[00:19:17] This is the Debunking Economics Podcast with Steve Keen and Phil Dobby.
[00:19:26] All right.
[00:19:26] So you are not saying, then, that one person has to make all the decisions.
[00:19:29] If we want to – because I was – the way you were talking before the break,
[00:19:32] it sounded like you were saying, well, we can't trust people with decisions
[00:19:37] because if we give them the freedom, they will destroy the planet.
[00:19:41] So it sounded to me like you were saying, well, okay, we need an engineer in charge.
[00:19:45] We need a dictator who just happens to be an engineer who tells us all the decisions
[00:19:50] he's going to make to keep mankind on the planet and keep us safe and alive.
[00:19:53] But you're saying that is not what you're talking about.
[00:19:55] We need to have – no.
[00:19:56] No, I'm saying we need to think about both ourselves and life on Earth
[00:20:02] in a systemic evolutionary way.
[00:20:04] And we need intelligent decision-making.
[00:20:07] I am a critic of believing that people voting in the classic sense of what we call democracy
[00:20:15] for the last 200 years, that's actually functional.
[00:20:18] We see that the exchange people are manipulated
[00:20:22] and don't simply have the intelligence or the capacity to think systemically,
[00:20:26] to know what the consequences are of various actions they've undertaken.
[00:20:30] People have democratically voted to invade another country.
[00:20:33] I mean, you know, a track record of what we call democracy is pretty bloody appalling.
[00:20:37] But if you look at like the ancient Greek civilization,
[00:20:40] partly if it was based on elections, it was also based on an intelligent version of sortition.
[00:20:45] You try to find – have a way of randomly selecting people who are intelligent to make your decisions.
[00:20:50] You also need to have a capacity to think about the systemic impact of decisions that are made.
[00:20:55] And that includes the long-term evolutionary impact.
[00:20:58] If we'd seen that forever chemicals can't be destroyed,
[00:21:02] I think we would have prevented those coming out of the lab in the very first instance,
[00:21:05] given the damage they can do to the life stream.
[00:21:08] Microplastics.
[00:21:09] There are so many things we've done that have long-term destructive consequences,
[00:21:14] not just for ourselves, but for life on the planet in general.
[00:21:16] And we have – our decision-making process sucks.
[00:21:22] That's my basic summary.
[00:21:23] But people will say, I don't want that because there will be people,
[00:21:27] and getting back to this idea of greed, there will be people who will say,
[00:21:30] I'm greedy.
[00:21:31] All I want to do is make more money.
[00:21:34] I mean, is Elon Musk greedy, do you think?
[00:21:38] If he is, he's very good at it because he's obviously the wealthiest person on the planet.
[00:21:44] And is his greed the result of his decision-making?
[00:21:48] And is it fair enough that he became the wealthiest person through the decisions he made?
[00:21:52] Should he have been allowed to make them and to grow to that extent, the wealth that he has?
[00:21:57] Let's just say this isn't easy for a starting point, getting a glib answer to this question.
[00:22:05] But in terms of greed, I mean, you know,
[00:22:08] he's – I remember a conversation related in one of his biographies.
[00:22:13] He's talking to some recalcitrant engineer on the production line in Starnbos and said,
[00:22:19] I could be sitting at a beach that's rounded by 14 supermodels, but I'm talking to you instead.
[00:22:25] So what he's using his money for is not the usual sort of thing that Robert Barron's used to spend their money on.
[00:22:31] You know, he doesn't have the rosebud palatial residences and so on.
[00:22:38] He's throwing a fortune at being the person who gets us off the planet.
[00:22:42] And that's an unusual way of displaying greed in that sense.
[00:22:49] So –
[00:22:50] You see, I would say that –
[00:22:52] I want to make distinction.
[00:22:52] I would say –
[00:22:53] Right.
[00:22:53] And okay.
[00:22:54] If just supposing you're wrong about the idea that mankind needs to get off the planet,
[00:22:59] just supposing, you know, a large proportion of the population was to say,
[00:23:04] well, that makes no sense, logically makes no sense,
[00:23:08] and we believe that the issue is shorter term than that.
[00:23:12] Elon Musk isn't doing a great deal for that.
[00:23:14] He's not doing anything to help the poor people of America, for example.
[00:23:16] When he gives money to charity, which he has to do by law,
[00:23:21] he by and large gives it to charities that are set up to benefit furthering his aim.
[00:23:27] You know, he's giving it to money to charities that are buying his products in many cases.
[00:23:32] So he's not there for the benevolence of mankind.
[00:23:34] I think that would be – you know, I think he's got this long-term vision
[00:23:37] that maybe in a funneled fashion he's going towards.
[00:23:41] But he's not there for the short-term good of mankind.
[00:23:43] He's there for his own – I'd say his own intellectual satisfaction more than the satisfaction of an economy
[00:23:51] where the poor are less poor and the rich are a bit more benevolent.
[00:23:57] Somehow I've gone from talking about freedom in general to freedom of one individual.
[00:24:01] It's always going to get to that.
[00:24:03] Well, okay.
[00:24:04] We start with the richest man.
[00:24:06] But, I mean, it's just this idea that, you know, how can he make decisions and other people can't?
[00:24:14] Well, that's one thing about money.
[00:24:16] Because he's got money.
[00:24:17] That was the point I was leading to.
[00:24:19] He can make decisions because he's got money.
[00:24:21] And money gives you freedom.
[00:24:22] Yeah, yeah.
[00:24:23] Okay.
[00:24:23] And that's the classic thing.
[00:24:24] If you don't have money, you don't have freedom.
[00:24:27] And then that's the nature of a capitalist economy.
[00:24:30] The more wealth you have, the more freedom you have to do whatever you want to do.
[00:24:33] I'm trying to think of the author of the book called The Magus.
[00:24:37] Had a wonderful short story about a butterfly collector who had an obsession about a particular girl
[00:24:44] and was going to expect her like collecting a butterfly.
[00:24:46] And you can imagine the outcome of that long, short story.
[00:24:49] But he actually made a point at Sunset.
[00:24:51] I don't know how he made a fortune.
[00:24:53] He made a bunch for a lottery.
[00:24:54] But he said with money, there's no barriers.
[00:24:56] So money buys you freedom to do what you want to do.
[00:25:00] That's the nature of a capitalist economy.
[00:25:02] But then that – and that's the sort of stuff that Milton Friedman celebrates
[00:25:07] and Locke and Concept celebrate as well.
[00:25:09] But if those then feed back and destroy the system, destroy life on the planet,
[00:25:15] then you're caught in the perspective I'm putting rather than the one that you're putting,
[00:25:19] that that is not a sensible definition of freedom.
[00:25:22] So the freedom I want is the freedom to finish working when I'm 70,
[00:25:29] having got a house that I won't get chucked out of,
[00:25:32] and to have enough money to live off reasonably well till the day I die.
[00:25:36] That's the freedom I want.
[00:25:38] And I would vote to protect that.
[00:25:41] I think most people would be in a similar boat.
[00:25:44] And that gets back to the rational decision-making, doesn't it?
[00:25:48] Whether it's greed or not, I don't think it's greedy to think I want to work till I'm 70
[00:25:51] and then have just enough to live off.
[00:25:53] If I was presented with an opportunity to make more money,
[00:25:56] I could make more money, but I'm choosing not to because I feel like I will live longer
[00:26:00] if I don't give myself the stress.
[00:26:03] Maybe that's irresponsible.
[00:26:05] Maybe I should be working harder.
[00:26:08] I need the freedom, though, surely, to be able to make those decisions
[00:26:11] because they are personal decisions.
[00:26:13] But that also comes back to just how much does society generate that form of freedom?
[00:26:18] I can't count how many homeless people I walk past on the way from the train here.
[00:26:23] Their freedom isn't exactly being enhanced by the way our society functions.
[00:26:27] So there's so many ways in which we see.
[00:26:30] Our ideology tells us that capitalism and free choice of decision-making
[00:26:35] leads to the best possible society.
[00:26:37] The remnants, the discards we see in society as well,
[00:26:41] which people end up blaming on the individual
[00:26:43] rather than blaming on the way society treats everybody.
[00:26:47] This is not a sustainable society.
[00:26:49] And I think a large part of that lack of sustainability
[00:26:52] comes out of the fact that we have a totally individualistic definition
[00:26:56] of what freedom and decision-making should be
[00:27:00] when we need one which has both the yin and the yang,
[00:27:04] the individual having freedom to move,
[00:27:07] but the overall system saying we must be able to ensure
[00:27:11] that everybody, including other life forms, can continue existing.
[00:27:16] And if your freedom means you destroy other life forms
[00:27:18] or you destroy the lives of others,
[00:27:20] then there's something wrong with the definition of freedom.
[00:27:22] Well, that means the rich by and large, doesn't it?
[00:27:25] Because they are causing the...
[00:27:26] And I don't want this to be a...
[00:27:28] Because there is that...
[00:27:29] You started off rich bashing.
[00:27:31] Well, I'm only bashing one rich person.
[00:27:36] I can see the...
[00:27:37] And I was...
[00:27:37] What is trying to...
[00:27:38] Why didn't you go, we should have gone for Bozos?
[00:27:41] Was it Bezos this time around
[00:27:42] because of your decision about not taking sides in the election,
[00:27:45] which seems to be a commercial decision rather than a political one?
[00:27:48] Or maybe he just feels like he shouldn't get involved.
[00:27:51] I mean, it's...
[00:27:51] But anyway, I mean, it's a crazy election anyway on either side.
[00:27:54] I mean, the US election is a complete irrelevance
[00:27:56] apart from demonstrating how democracy has failed.
[00:27:59] But we're seeing...
[00:28:00] I mean, I take your point on that.
[00:28:01] Democracy is failing all over the world, isn't it?
[00:28:03] And it's all based on non-rational decision-making.
[00:28:07] So this idea of rationality.
[00:28:09] But let's get back to that idea of rationality very quickly
[00:28:11] because Jeff Bezos, you know, maybe wanting to make more money.
[00:28:17] Elon Musk is there trying to make more money as well.
[00:28:20] Maybe they are driven by greed and that makes them innovate.
[00:28:24] But there's other people...
[00:28:25] And you've, you know, heard this story before.
[00:28:27] Let's take a woman who lives on the central coast of New South Wales.
[00:28:31] She's worked in old-age care because that's what she wanted to do.
[00:28:36] Was on minimum wage, no guarantee of hours.
[00:28:39] Struggled to bring up three children.
[00:28:40] Well, you could say, well, OK, it was her decision to have children
[00:28:42] if she can't afford it.
[00:28:43] She lived in a rented house quite away from anywhere.
[00:28:46] Her husband couldn't find a regular job, particularly as he got older.
[00:28:50] The husband dies.
[00:28:51] She's left with a meagre pension.
[00:28:52] Can't afford the rent.
[00:28:54] Is homeless.
[00:28:55] Her decision was she wasn't greedy enough
[00:28:59] because she was a care...
[00:29:00] She's taking care of other people.
[00:29:01] Yeah, she wanted to take care of other people.
[00:29:03] So how does society...
[00:29:04] You know, the system has failed
[00:29:06] because we are only looking after the greedy.
[00:29:10] And so, you know, and it was her choice.
[00:29:12] So she made the wrong choice.
[00:29:13] She made a bad choice.
[00:29:15] How dare she?
[00:29:16] She deserves what she gets.
[00:29:17] Yeah, which shows the weakness of...
[00:29:19] She should have been...
[00:29:20] She should have taken up...
[00:29:21] She should have taken up day trading
[00:29:23] or something like that.
[00:29:24] Which shows the weakness of having
[00:29:25] a total individual definition of freedom.
[00:29:31] Freedom has to mean the potential
[00:29:35] for a society to be self-sustaining
[00:29:38] and to maintain the environment in which it exists.
[00:29:41] And if we have a definition of freedom
[00:29:43] which actually undermines those,
[00:29:44] then there's something wrong
[00:29:45] with the definition of freedom.
[00:29:46] You have to be making...
[00:29:48] You have to have the capacity
[00:29:49] to make decisions within a context
[00:29:50] that says we want our society
[00:29:53] to enable life to continue on this planet.
[00:29:57] And we haven't done that.
[00:29:59] So there's something very destructive
[00:30:00] about our definition of freedom.
[00:30:02] And destructive about the monetary system as well.
[00:30:05] Because as I said, you know,
[00:30:06] the enormous amount of money...
[00:30:09] I wouldn't worry so much about
[00:30:09] the Elon Musks of the world in that front.
[00:30:11] I'd worry about the oil barons
[00:30:13] because the freedom that they've used to make money.
[00:30:16] And even in talking not just oil barons,
[00:30:20] but countries like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait
[00:30:22] and so on,
[00:30:23] they've made enormous wealth
[00:30:25] out of extracting energy out of the ground
[00:30:27] that happened to be...
[00:30:28] On their turf.
[00:30:29] That's where the dinosaurs got blended
[00:30:32] and it happens to be where that happened.
[00:30:34] And the wealth and power that gives them.
[00:30:36] And they're using that
[00:30:37] to continue extracting that oil
[00:30:39] and encouraging us to burn it
[00:30:42] and further damaging the potential
[00:30:43] for life on the planet.
[00:30:45] Planet.
[00:30:45] But if...
[00:30:46] How do we find the boundaries
[00:30:49] of all of this then?
[00:30:50] What's the...
[00:30:50] How do we say,
[00:30:51] well, okay,
[00:30:52] it's freedom to a point.
[00:30:53] Where do you draw the boundaries?
[00:30:54] How do you develop a system that says,
[00:30:57] okay, you need to...
[00:30:58] You can only live within the confines
[00:30:59] of actually what is sustainable
[00:31:01] for the planet
[00:31:01] and is also good for all of mankind
[00:31:04] and all of the creatures on the planet.
[00:31:06] How do you define
[00:31:08] where that freedom starts and finishes?
[00:31:10] I think that's why you've got to have
[00:31:11] both a systemic and evolutionary view
[00:31:12] of our role on the planet
[00:31:14] and say that's the overall concept
[00:31:16] is we want to be able
[00:31:17] to enhance life,
[00:31:18] not destroy it.
[00:31:19] And so far,
[00:31:20] we've done a damn good job
[00:31:20] of destroying life
[00:31:21] rather than enhancing it.
[00:31:23] But what does that look like?
[00:31:25] We have to see ourselves
[00:31:25] as servants rather than masters.
[00:31:27] But as a political system,
[00:31:29] what does that look like?
[00:31:30] I mean,
[00:31:30] you think what you're saying
[00:31:31] is you've got to have experts.
[00:31:34] Yeah.
[00:31:35] And genuine experts
[00:31:36] are bloody economists.
[00:31:38] But yeah,
[00:31:38] people who understand
[00:31:39] how systems interact
[00:31:41] and expertise
[00:31:43] and engineering
[00:31:44] and philosophy
[00:31:45] and a whole range
[00:31:46] of different disciplines,
[00:31:47] but also a capacity
[00:31:49] to think about the economy
[00:31:50] and model it
[00:31:51] in a systemic way.
[00:31:52] I'm thinking of a guy
[00:31:53] that I knew
[00:31:53] who was involved
[00:31:54] in system dynamics
[00:31:55] who developed his interest
[00:31:57] in Iraq
[00:31:58] because he saw the damage
[00:32:00] of ideas
[00:32:01] about what the Americans
[00:32:03] could do in Iraq
[00:32:04] which backfired
[00:32:05] drastically,
[00:32:06] not just on the Iraq,
[00:32:07] especially on the Iraqis,
[00:32:09] but also on the Americans
[00:32:10] themselves.
[00:32:10] And his argument
[00:32:11] is that he wants
[00:32:13] to have a system
[00:32:13] which is not possible
[00:32:14] to make any decision
[00:32:15] unless you simulate
[00:32:16] its potential consequences first.
[00:32:18] And then if it passes
[00:32:19] the simulation,
[00:32:21] then you can give it a try.
[00:32:22] But you've also got to
[00:32:23] then continue testing
[00:32:24] to make sure
[00:32:24] whether the simulation
[00:32:25] has actually had
[00:32:26] a realistic prediction.
[00:32:28] So,
[00:32:30] there's so much
[00:32:31] that we've done
[00:32:32] which only makes sense
[00:32:33] if individual behaviour
[00:32:35] has no collective consequences
[00:32:36] and that ain't
[00:32:37] the world we live on.
[00:32:39] So,
[00:32:39] you've got to have
[00:32:40] a lot of trust,
[00:32:41] of course,
[00:32:41] in this approach.
[00:32:42] Whoever's making
[00:32:43] these decisions
[00:32:43] has got to be trusted
[00:32:44] by everyone.
[00:32:45] But it sounds like
[00:32:45] you're almost going back
[00:32:47] to the original idea
[00:32:50] behind the House of Lords.
[00:32:52] Not entirely,
[00:32:53] but the idea
[00:32:53] that you have
[00:32:54] a group of experts
[00:32:56] across a variety
[00:32:57] of fields.
[00:32:57] I mean,
[00:32:57] this obviously
[00:32:58] is before the whole thing
[00:32:59] became bastardised
[00:33:00] and you started to have
[00:33:02] 23-year-old assistants
[00:33:04] to Boris Johnson.
[00:33:06] Yeah,
[00:33:06] who only got in there
[00:33:07] because obviously
[00:33:08] Boris wanted to,
[00:33:09] you know,
[00:33:10] wanted to have his way
[00:33:10] with her
[00:33:11] and maybe he did.
[00:33:13] Maybe that was the promise.
[00:33:14] But,
[00:33:16] you know,
[00:33:16] before all of that
[00:33:17] started to happen,
[00:33:19] it was the idea,
[00:33:19] wasn't it,
[00:33:20] of the House of Lords.
[00:33:21] You know,
[00:33:21] going back to the
[00:33:22] very early days
[00:33:23] that these were people,
[00:33:25] you know,
[00:33:26] who were controlling
[00:33:26] the country,
[00:33:27] actually.
[00:33:27] So,
[00:33:28] I mean,
[00:33:28] it wasn't exactly
[00:33:28] the sentiment
[00:33:29] that you're describing,
[00:33:30] but they were,
[00:33:31] you know,
[00:33:31] they were experts
[00:33:32] in fields
[00:33:32] and,
[00:33:33] you know,
[00:33:33] if you took that
[00:33:34] to the ultimate degree
[00:33:35] where it was a handful
[00:33:37] of people,
[00:33:38] maybe 50 people
[00:33:39] across a whole variety
[00:33:40] of different walks of life
[00:33:41] with different levels
[00:33:42] of expertise,
[00:33:44] then as these,
[00:33:46] you know,
[00:33:46] maybe it could exist
[00:33:47] with democracy as well,
[00:33:48] but that would be
[00:33:49] the House
[00:33:50] that would be there
[00:33:50] determining the future
[00:33:51] direction for the country
[00:33:53] and everyone did
[00:33:53] the same thing.
[00:33:54] Is that the sort of approach
[00:33:55] that you're talking about?
[00:33:56] Well,
[00:33:56] I wouldn't go with
[00:33:58] the House of Lords
[00:33:58] as my model,
[00:33:59] but fundamentally
[00:33:59] the idea
[00:34:00] of a group
[00:34:01] of people
[00:34:01] who are experts
[00:34:03] in their own fields
[00:34:04] who are consulted
[00:34:06] on what the potential
[00:34:07] effect of a decision
[00:34:08] is likely to be
[00:34:09] and who then
[00:34:10] are guided
[00:34:11] by systems analysis,
[00:34:13] system feedback software,
[00:34:15] far more sophisticated
[00:34:16] than anything
[00:34:16] I've helped develop,
[00:34:17] yet let alone
[00:34:17] what's on the rest
[00:34:19] of the planet.
[00:34:21] And then we have
[00:34:22] some potential
[00:34:23] to guide us
[00:34:24] through the uncertainties
[00:34:25] of the future
[00:34:29] revolution
[00:34:29] of human civilization.
[00:34:31] But yeah,
[00:34:32] the idea
[00:34:33] of two competing
[00:34:34] left and right wing,
[00:34:34] originally left
[00:34:35] and right wing,
[00:34:36] now I think
[00:34:37] you can do
[00:34:37] your George Galloway,
[00:34:38] the Tories
[00:34:40] and the Labour Party
[00:34:41] are now two sides,
[00:34:42] two chicks
[00:34:44] of the same bum.
[00:34:45] Two chicks
[00:34:46] of the same buttock.
[00:34:47] I think this is your question.
[00:34:50] That's the failure
[00:34:52] we've fallen into
[00:34:54] that our politics
[00:34:55] has ended up
[00:34:56] with two brands
[00:34:57] of neoliberalism.
[00:34:59] being what we get.
[00:35:01] And so the ideological
[00:35:03] definition of politics
[00:35:05] and left versus right
[00:35:06] has been a farce.
[00:35:08] And, you know,
[00:35:09] that, to me,
[00:35:10] that only worked
[00:35:11] in the,
[00:35:11] if you go back to,
[00:35:14] far, far back
[00:35:14] in our past,
[00:35:16] with decision making,
[00:35:17] where, you know,
[00:35:18] one tribe decides
[00:35:19] to fight the territory
[00:35:20] of another tribe,
[00:35:20] you want a great leader
[00:35:21] to make you have
[00:35:23] a successful battle
[00:35:24] with the other tribe.
[00:35:27] That is,
[00:35:28] in many ways,
[00:35:29] we're still in a manifestation
[00:35:30] of that sort of society
[00:35:31] when, in fact,
[00:35:32] what we're doing
[00:35:33] is battling ourselves.
[00:35:34] And I guess,
[00:35:35] I mean,
[00:35:36] laws are, you know,
[00:35:37] are taking away
[00:35:38] your freedoms,
[00:35:38] aren't they?
[00:35:39] I mean,
[00:35:39] that's the idea
[00:35:39] of a law
[00:35:40] by its very nature.
[00:35:41] You know,
[00:35:41] we are not
[00:35:42] the Wild West.
[00:35:43] So it's just a question
[00:35:44] of who's making
[00:35:45] those laws.
[00:35:46] And none of it
[00:35:46] is actually,
[00:35:47] I mean,
[00:35:48] we make it very difficult,
[00:35:48] but the answers
[00:35:50] seem easy.
[00:35:51] It's just a question
[00:35:52] of how they happen.
[00:35:53] So taking the example
[00:35:54] of someone who wants
[00:35:55] to work in aged care,
[00:35:56] and there'll be many
[00:35:57] more people like that
[00:35:58] who are on very low incomes
[00:35:59] and won't be able
[00:35:59] to sustain themselves
[00:36:00] later in life,
[00:36:02] we should just create
[00:36:02] a situation where we say,
[00:36:04] if that's what you're
[00:36:04] going to do,
[00:36:05] we are very thankful
[00:36:05] that you're doing that
[00:36:06] and we are going to make sure
[00:36:07] that you have enough money
[00:36:07] to live off for the rest
[00:36:08] of your life.
[00:36:09] End of story.
[00:36:10] Really?
[00:36:11] It's not that complicated,
[00:36:12] is it?
[00:36:12] We've got to provide,
[00:36:13] you will be provided for,
[00:36:15] for all the work
[00:36:15] that you're doing.
[00:36:16] Thank you very much.
[00:36:17] But society doesn't allow that.
[00:36:19] And then you've got also,
[00:36:20] you know,
[00:36:21] there's other things
[00:36:22] that you've got
[00:36:22] repercussions for
[00:36:24] that are not your fault.
[00:36:26] You know,
[00:36:27] like,
[00:36:27] so it's not all choices.
[00:36:28] You could be knocked down
[00:36:29] in a car accident
[00:36:30] and need constant care.
[00:36:31] And maybe you're
[00:36:32] struggling for that.
[00:36:33] You know,
[00:36:33] so society just should
[00:36:34] just be there to say
[00:36:35] if that happens to you,
[00:36:37] you will be cared for.
[00:36:38] But by the way,
[00:36:40] let's get these boffins
[00:36:41] trying to figure out
[00:36:41] why so many people
[00:36:42] are getting killed
[00:36:43] in car accidents
[00:36:43] and trying to prevent
[00:36:44] that from happening.
[00:36:46] That's the sort of thing
[00:36:47] you're talking about.
[00:36:47] We need a systemic
[00:36:49] and expert control world.
[00:36:50] We don't live in one.
[00:36:51] Yeah.
[00:36:52] Do you think we ever will?
[00:36:54] When it's too late.
[00:36:54] I know you answered to that.
[00:36:56] No,
[00:36:56] I think it's too late.
[00:36:57] We're going to be back
[00:36:58] and we're lucky
[00:36:58] we'll be in Mad Max.
[00:37:00] So that,
[00:37:01] you know,
[00:37:01] forget about luck.
[00:37:02] All right.
[00:37:03] Well,
[00:37:03] I'm going to move
[00:37:03] to the top of a hill then
[00:37:04] and start barricading up
[00:37:06] ready for those days.
[00:37:08] Steve,
[00:37:09] yeah,
[00:37:09] interesting discussion.
[00:37:10] Not so good to talk,
[00:37:11] but anyway.
[00:37:11] Well,
[00:37:12] look,
[00:37:12] I mean,
[00:37:13] it's,
[00:37:14] you know,
[00:37:14] we didn't talk a great deal
[00:37:15] about economics.
[00:37:15] What we have talked about
[00:37:16] is society
[00:37:17] and how it's going wrong
[00:37:19] and the system is wrong.
[00:37:21] I mean,
[00:37:21] that's the upshot,
[00:37:23] isn't it?
[00:37:23] The system needs to change
[00:37:24] and anyone can see that
[00:37:26] at a set level.
[00:37:27] If Donald Trump
[00:37:27] is president
[00:37:28] of the United States
[00:37:29] next week,
[00:37:30] anyone can see
[00:37:31] that that has been created
[00:37:32] by a system
[00:37:33] that is wrong.
[00:37:34] Kamala Harris,
[00:37:34] not such a great alternative
[00:37:36] either.
[00:37:37] The UK political scene
[00:37:39] is a disaster.
[00:37:40] All around the world
[00:37:41] you see this.
[00:37:41] No one's got the politicians
[00:37:43] that they want.
[00:37:44] Everyone all over the world
[00:37:45] is saying,
[00:37:45] how did we get here?
[00:37:47] So I think there's recognition
[00:37:48] that the political level
[00:37:49] things are wrong
[00:37:49] and then at the economic level
[00:37:50] there's a whole load of people
[00:37:51] struggling to get by
[00:37:52] and saying,
[00:37:53] well,
[00:37:53] why is this going wrong
[00:37:55] as well?
[00:37:55] So I think there's a recognition
[00:37:57] that all of these things
[00:37:59] are wrong.
[00:38:00] There's just no bold answer
[00:38:02] about how we fix it
[00:38:03] and the problem is
[00:38:04] from what you're saying
[00:38:05] is the bold answer is
[00:38:06] we need to take away
[00:38:08] a chunk of democracy
[00:38:09] and give it to the hands
[00:38:11] of experts
[00:38:12] who are going to make
[00:38:13] decisions for us
[00:38:14] and take away your freedoms
[00:38:15] for the good of mankind
[00:38:16] and for the good of the planet.
[00:38:18] That's a big sell.
[00:38:19] I know.
[00:38:20] Bernard Decker
[00:38:20] is going to get a chance
[00:38:21] to sell it
[00:38:22] because then you get
[00:38:22] all fall apart
[00:38:23] before you get a chance anyway.
[00:38:24] Yeah.
[00:38:24] Well,
[00:38:24] thank God you're old,
[00:38:25] Steve.
[00:38:26] Optimistic boss,
[00:38:27] I don't know.
[00:38:27] Thank you.
[00:38:29] You don't have to live with it
[00:38:30] for as long as my kids do,
[00:38:31] for example.
[00:38:32] Well,
[00:38:32] hopefully they'll figure something out.
[00:38:34] All right.
[00:38:35] Good to talk as always.
[00:38:36] It's sort of.
[00:38:37] We'll catch you next week.
[00:38:37] Okay, mate.
[00:38:38] Thanks.
[00:38:38] Bye, guys.
[00:38:39] The Debunking Economics Podcast.
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[00:38:47] to Debunking Economics,
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