Aaron Bastani is the best interviewer in the business. By far! This interview is a masterpiece. Interviewing two specialists in a very complex discipline and obviously having done the basic homework he structures the whole thing so that, at the end, all the complexities are made accessible to the rest of us. Bravo!
A sovereign country issues its own currency and so can afford anything that is priced in its own currency. If 'borrowing' means that then it is only a book entry. It is not borrowing as we understand it.
I worked as a tour guide in Rome for 6 years, and studying their collapse has always made me feel we were on the precipice, so listening to this conversation was somewhat reassuring that my conclusions were not crazy. This is the kind of conversation that kids should be shown in school and then discuss...we need to change the conversation much more widely.
Palestine isn’t why she lost: Americans DO NOT vote on foreign policy. Most voters were voting on how they felt about the cost of living, wages , inflation etc
@@RockstarWreckeryou are right. Which is beyond insane. That's there thing. But either way both candidates morally and historically needs to be with Isreals however it plays out. So to think one is gonna be better on it makes no sense. Actually Trump on record has a strained relationship with BIBI...He might cut the funding before Kamala.
You're probably right overall, but I can't imagine backing a genocide as an ostensibly left wing party wasn't part of the reason for the lower turn out
Actually, most Americans could care less about what their country does overseas. Majority of Americans ignore what the country's military/other agencies do outside the US. The military strength of the US is a part of American identity. I knew way too many Americans in the US military lol. I myself was going to be one of them.
Womp womp. Maslow's hierarchy of needs explains it all. Tough to care about genocide in another country (which happens all over the world in fact, look at Africa) when you don’t have enough money for gas to get to work.
John Rapley's contribution is very interesting and informative as he's lived in Asia. He emphasises how the developing countries contributions will continue to impact the West's slow decline. The decline is inevitable because of bad political leaders with their heads in the sand. The hubris of former colonisers prevent them from understanding their importance in the world is much less than they think. Sleepwalking into disaster.
It's simpler than that. Finite resources are indeed finite, and the human population has mushroomed based entirely upon temporary fossil-fuel wealth, with our current (wholly unsustainable) economic system as the result. This complex and vulnerable mechanism is now our only life support system. Bad political leadership (unmanageable problems) is simply a result of the decline which we now see beginning - becasue populations will never knowingly vote to have less wealth. The downhill slide might not be slow at all. We are probably on the gentle roll-in at the top of a rather steep ramp. Isolated Amazonian tribes and distant agrarian societies probably have the best chance of survival - if dispossesed westerners don't exploit them into oblivion just prior to their own demise.
@davidpalk5010 "It's simpler ... It's simply that ..." There's a warning right there. We all have hobby horses, and "simply" is a reasonable equine marker for readers.😊 Edit: not disagreeing, though. 😏 And I particularly liked the reference to Amazonian tribes. Presumably you don't mean the Bezosians ...
Yes, I'm struggling - lost all my money and house during the pandemic; starting again at plus 50 and a professional. I'll never own a house of be able to retire.
we are so Western centric that we often forget that the Roman Empire survived in the form of Eastern Roman Empire (the richest provinces) until the fall of Costantinople in 1453, and what we consider Western Europe is basically the Roman Empire minus the provinces conquered by the Arabs. Still, nothing is eternal, but that was quite a long time ...
@@vintagechairlifts9902 The main two reasons for why the east survived while the west fell were that: 1) It never lost it's richest provinces. During the 5th century, only the east's Balkan provinces were seriously damaged by invasions, while the much more valuable lands of Egypt, Syria, and Anatolia were safe. That meant they still had the money to pay for professional Roman troops to fight back. But the west lost it's most valuable province (Africa) and so was economically crippled, leaving it basically powerless against the barbarian invaders and had to pay for cheaper barbarian mercenaries for the military instead.... 2)...which leads onto point 2, that the military had a strangehold over the Western government but not the eastern government. Because the west was under more external pressure, it had to remain more militarised which gave the army much more power in politics to the point that when one of the barbarian mercenary leaders, Odoacer, deposed the last Western emperor, he faced practically no resistance. Meanwhile the east was less militarised during this time and so subsersive elements in the army didn't have enough power to dictate state policy.
This conversation is doubly joyful for intelligent questions and equally sharp and enlightening answers. Fascinating that there's a congruence in Roman and American empire facing decline precisely when they seemed at their zenith.
One would only think the American empire is at its zenith if they are among the small percentage of affluent classes benefiting from the failed neoliberal project.
But that’s exactly what Zenith or Peak means😂😂😂everything is downhill from there. By definition, you can’t have reached the peak if you’re still going uphill.
@@junli6065 you’re nitpicking here. their argument is that neither of the two empires showed willingness to accept the inevitable decline; and that they viewed the zenith as a permanent condition
Social contract works in both ways. If the people in power don't take care of the people, people turn around and find solutions. If there's no solutions anymore people turn the table over in a violent way.
I did see a lecture in which the lecturer stated four components that contribute to Empires falling. 1. A dysfunctional political system. 2. Military overreach. 3. High levels of government indebtedness 4. I can't remember this reason, it might be rising inequality leading to civil unrest. The first three reasons and definitely the fourth, I seem to remember anyway, apply to America. As for 'the West', BRICS and the opportunity it affords to Africa not having to suffer Western pillaging, is starting to lead to the decline here in the West.
There is a major problem happening today. First and foremost is that industrialization people moved into cities and started having less babies. Second, in 1960 the birth control pill was introduced and then people started dramatically having less and less babies. Three major countries has run out babies and have now running out of working age adults. 1. Russia. 2. China, and the third is China. Which means we see a collapse of these three powers leaving only the United States of America only Super Power in World.
Sir John Glubb's essay, "The Fate of Empires and Struggle for Survival" covers 6 specific stages of decline. The essay is cited in the first ten minutes of the documentary film, "Four Horsemen." You can get the free .pdf of the essay online and read it. I did.
culturally in the UK it was also 1999, and the decline was immedate. Listen to the music, from the uphoria of the millenium, in 2020/21 everyone went home, the Iraq war crushed hope of change, the music turned dark, the streets turned dark, our generation all started looking overseas for alternatives. It was immediate and it was the economy that was slow to realise!
Ppl in UK are kept unaware of the huge brain drain that is currently going on in the country. One of the reasons NHS is in crisis is because the doctors ( Yes they are highly qualified professionals and huge intellectual and social assett) have gone abroad in mind numbing numbers.
The issue is that people don't understand that bad governance and bad foreign policy is the main cause, and the government shirk responsibilities and blame foreigners and foreign countries instead.
It's an empire, hellbent on preserving its rule of the world. Simply a morphed version of the British Empire. Both used the divide-and-rule strategy of power to 1) get where they were, using a geographical position of power (geopolitics), and 2) protect the own status as ruler of the world, by dividing the rest of the planet.
The current wealth of "the west" is based wholly upon two factors; fossil fuels and imperialism. Both of those things have ended for Europe, and will inevitably eventually end for the US.
"If Trump were to be elected and bring in his policies of cutting/restricting trade, it would probably tip the US - probably after a couple of years of boom - into absolute decline." - was this recorded before Musk's comments about "short-term pain"? Cause it sounds like maybe they're going to skip the boom & just cut directly to the decline.
The West collapsed in 1939. WW2 dominoed the European empires into oblivion. America was just the standalone offshoot Western empire, and now it's collapsed into a dictatorship, just like Spain, the first global Western empire did. Kind of poetic in a grotesque way
After the collapse of the USSR, the mask came off and America revealed its true colours as something too post-modern and globalist to be recognisable as the west anymore. The hopes for reviving the heart of western civilization fades with each passing day.
I just think it’s fascinating at how the leadership class of collapsing empires are usually the last to know the wheels have come off the wagon and doom is nigh
How is it that the impact of years of austerity hasn't been mentioned let alone assessed, this increased the wealth gap, the virtual flatlining of the economy. Every eminent economist as well as the L.S.E unilaterally agreed that this was a disastrous policy.
Even before watching: I’ve been saying this for decades. The signs where and are all around us. Lack of productivity, decadence, playing the blame game, populism, etc. Everybody wants to rule the world but nobody takes responsibility.
As an artist I can't help feel that art and architecture in particular are canaries in the mine for civilizations. The rise of modernism and brutalism and the complete rejection of grace and beauty indicate that to me civilization in the west started to die a good century ago and we are now in the final stages.
funny how Anglos always identify with the Romans but never see the similarities they have with Carthage. Maritime powers, in control of global trade, financiers and merchants, ruled by said interest groups, not giving a sh$t about "values' and "culture" if there is any amount of profit to be made, not being able to fight their own wars but relying on mercenaries and bought proxies, strong ascending continental powers being the bane of their existence. but ofc no one wants to project its future on the salted fields of Carthage, but hey that's what nukes are for.
There are Three civilizations set to collapse this because of industrialization and birth control pill this affect will cut their populations in half in the next twenty years. First, is Russia, second is China, and third is Germany. So what we will see is "Globalization" start to fail and we will go back to time more closer to where we at before World War II with far less trade and more pirates on the open oceans.
Another brilliant pod. Novarra and not too many others actually spelling out what's happening in our world. Meanwhile.... everyone else listening to 'liars and stupid' (Peter heaths description, not mine!)
This idea of the Roman Empire being at its peak the moment before its collapse brings to mind a population of bacteria in a Petrie Dish with a limited supply of nutrients doubling and doubling and reaching its maximum at the moment before the collapse. So 1999 was the peak, but how long is a moment in history?
Rome peaked before the Third Century Crisis. Everything after that is a long but gradual trending down. I imagine America will also have a long but gradual decline, unless it decides to go out in a blaze in WW3.
Thank you Aaron. Salience a good word. The Romans paid soldiers in salt. The Romans also salted the fields of those they defeated. The word also has relevance in modern psychology: the salience of present stimuli points to the the fact that consciousness is experienced as a field with a margin and a center (William James).
Do you really want to live in former civilized countries now lawless and dominated by criminal gangs where rape, murder, theft and perhaps even slavery are now a common everyday occurence?
Surely, any serious discussion of Western civilizational decline and the possible collapse of the Euro-American empire should include a deep analysis of the seismic demographic changes underway in western countries related to rapidly falling birth and fertility rates. However, this far-reaching issue is mentioned quite in passing from 1:01:20 and discussed for less than three minutes. As I understand it though, in the year 1900, Europeans and their progeny in the diaspora (Americas, Australia, Oceania etc,) constituted about 30% of the 1.6 billion people on earth. However, demographers now say that by the year 2100, this same cohort will constitute less than 10% of the estimated 10.3 billion people on earth. How can a civilization/empire survive such a dramatic swing in its relative share of the world's total population in only 200 years and avoid decline and collapse?
I think you're hitching an entho-racial wagon to a cultural horse, so to speak. I think their use of Imperial Rome as a case study serves as a template for thinking about Western Empire, that is, a political and economic entity glued together by shared values, political philosophy, epistemology, etc. Tying the fate of Western Empire to the demographic fate of people descended from Europe poses some odd issues, for one, the fact that Western nations do not have an official ethnic basis for citizenship, although, as your comment demonstrates, we do carry an imagined one, that modern Western Empire or civilization has some sort of one-to-one relationship to people of European descent. How do bloodlines determine whether or not someone subscribes to the Constitution of the United States, believes in the centrality of private property to individual liberty, or that humans possess inalienable rights?
Fantastic discussion. The only thing missing from the final summary was any discussion of the environmental problems we are facing and how they affect economics.
We needed Ash on this show. What is their argument, Aaron? Tax super wealth? Wealth redistribution, public ownership of housing? These two and you are holding your cards very close. The American says we need to have a conversation: Let's have it.
The UK is deliberately set up to make the rich richer, and the poor poorer. The housing crisis could easily be solved if the planning for houses and land were made easily accessible. The cheapest houses for the homeless could be built with modern materials for £30,000.00 approx. according tot he Big issue owner.
The guests are right on the spot.Emperor Caracalla extended the citizenship to all free people living in the empire(212AD).By fifth century the concept of a Roman was geographical not ethnic one.
Yeah, suggesting infinite growth on a finite planet with finite space (without encroaching on areas we really need to rewild or protect) to live and grow food, finite fresh water, finite energy, finite capacity to absorb polution. Finite time before all of these factors close in on us rapidly, compounding on each other. I wonder what exactly is he suggesting can grow infinitly? Although i have just read that there is research to suggest a decoupling of GDP from energy use has taken place in a number of countries over the last 20 years, even accounting for energy used in production of imported goods (Hannah ritchie 2023) - Maybe he is citing this trend and assuming it can be replicated for all economies?
@@ciriusp "Infinite growth" does set off alarm bells for sure, but in the context could be alluding to export of expertise, education, more efficient tech, etc. - things without a carbon footprint per se. I still think the "growth mindset" is repellent, just playing devil's advocate..
We can grow at 3% per capita easily for the next 200 years, which would be average consumption will be 300 times current consumption in 200 years. The reason this is possible is because of technology. Putting solar on less than 1% of the USA land would provide for 100% of current energy needs. Desalination can provide for much more water. Betting against technology and human ingenuity goes against the improvement in technology over the last 200 years.
@@omarb155 Yeah, what technology have to got to reverse topsoil loss? Fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides is destroying the soil microbiome we need in order to still have agriculture.
18:00 India and China were the driving factors of global economy and declined very quickly. A small fact missed out was the impact of colonialism. They didnt collapse due to debt and decadence.
@ India didn’t exist after the treaty of Westphalia? England, for example, existed a single kingdom continuously from the 9th century. The kingdom was a singular tax base which redistributed money on infrastructure and the military. No such subcontinent wide such structure existed in India. Pointless to claim it as a whole.
I would be curious to hear more about what underlying "assumptions" Rapley disagrees with vis a vis Modern Monetary Theory, because I know that the maths (and the accounting identities) are unquestionably correct. Usually with MMT detractors there is some misconception that its proponents believe that there are no limits, but that's fundamentally incorrect. There ARE limits, and they are real resource availability (including labour). There are also stringent requirements around the capacity to tax -- and right now the burgeoning billionaire class is an indication that our taxation system is no longer fit for purpose
How is it a gamble? It’s a gamble like jumping into a volcano is a gamble. By most metrics, things have improved underJoe Biden. but most people aren’t watching media that actually deals in facts they’re watching Fox News or one of the many far right Internet streamers
He might be worse. Or he might be better. There are two wars raging. He's pledged to end one for sure. And he wants the other war brought to an end. If he just ends the Ukraine war, that's better than Biden/Harris.
*"The forest was shrinking, but the trees kept voting for the axe, for the axe was clever and convinced the trees that because his handle was made of wood he was one of them."*
As a non economist and after 3 minutes of listening it seems to me as a non specialist the story is simple and as follows: the colonies gave the west the wealth which they stole and plundered, killing hundreds of millions across 5 centuries. That period ended and the natural growth of the plundered nations began a rebirth. Second, the insane idea to transfer manufacturing to China, which resulted in trash flooding the world and vast fortunes being pocketed by Corporate managers, turned China into a powerhouse thanks to the greed of the criminal quartet that rules the west, the Bankers, Lawyers, CEOs and Politicians. Note that while Billions upon Billions have been paid as fines for criminal activity by Corporations and Banks not a single manager has gone to prison. The algorithm was the criminal apparently, no human was involved! As gaming the system became commonplace, fewer gave their all, and decline started there, too. Obviously once China reaches similar prosperity it too will grow much more slowly, while India will take much longer and probably face internal strife for civilisational reasons. Oh, I could go on for ever. Hope you get the gist of what I wish to highlight. Trump back will put high stress on the mechanisms that operate across the countries, with no evidence the so called leaders have either the intelligence or the common sense to navigate a path forward. Big trouble ahead is entirely possible. Extreme mediocrity, malevolence and greed today drive nations. Wisdom exists in quiet corners here and there, watching impassively, as the wretched Sapien unaware marches to the precipice. Happy Weekend.
China’s always been an economic powerhouse. Why else was Columbus and all those explorers looking for a new route to China? Between tea, silk and pottery, they were producing a lot of wealth. If not for opium, invasion and looting by the “nasty Europeans”, China wouldn’t have collapsed so totally. If anything, China’s current attitude of development by any means was motivated by the West.
How can we even say the Roman empire collapsed when the Eastern part of it survived until the 15th century, and people from the area into even the Ottoman empire and 20th century were called and called themselves Roman?
There was a cultural offshoot that defined the eastern Roman as deferent . The western empire. Did have massive rapid simplification of urban life as a separate entity. Your argument is not wholly incorrect but there is a functional as allogry here
J.D. Unwin, Sex and Culture The premise of the book is that increased sexual freedom leads to civilization's decline while limited sexual freedom leads to civilization's advance.
The thesis seems well supported by the facts. But it's a bit disappointing that they don't mention other suggested mechanisms (such as Joseph Tainter's diminishing returns/increasing energy costs of complexity).
Everyone didn't seem to think it was an issue when everything was made in Hong Kong when Britain had it. Now it is China where everything is made its a different story.
Dear me. Aaron didn't listen to Stephanie Kelton during their interview, quite clearly. The sensibles on government deficits need to be able to tell me what level of debt or what level of deficit damages economic growth. None of them can. It is a part of he economic map marked "Here be monsters". I'll be interested in these counter-arguments against MMT when they can give me more than that.
He doesn't seem to quite grasp that MMT is a description of how the system works under the current framework. It isn't a list of policies or a hypothesis, it's a statement of facts based on analysis. Whatever policies you wish to derive from knowing the reality of how money functions is wholly separate from MMT. I'd love to have Richard J Murphy on Downstream to discuss Aaron's very weird and quite frankly ignorant view of what MMT is and isn't.
@@Morinaka25 He said the one thing people always say if they have no idea about MMT, ie "they say you can spend as much as you want". Very frustrating.
@@davidthompson797 I do find it odd, because if he bothered to understand it in good faith, it would make him a better debater against the right, particularly on the topic of the kind of spending and investment policy he wants done. His continued misrepresentation, and seeming active dislike of the topic is utterly bizarre, and almost furthers the idea of how leftists are economically ignorant.
Thank you!! I started out by giving this a thumbs up (admittedly, I was distracted doing a household task while listening) but see my comment 44 min. after yours about the British "White Man's Burden" twit. It is a New World, yet some historians are weighed down and stuck far in the past!
@@markschneider3968 The political economist certainly is not stuck in the past. He made very strong points about living in Asia and witnessing for himself how developing nations would impact the 'empire' in a huge way. There would no longer dominate the world. Thank goodness.
Fac Romem Magnae Iterum (if my Latin is ok, it probably isn't). One mark of imperial decline are celebrity chefs, in the late Roman Empire recipe books from famous cooks, like Apicius, became popular, today we have TV chefs and their accompanying cook books. The US has, since its birth, been consciously trying to evoke the Roman Empire, it has a Capitol building like the temple of Jupiter in Rome, a Senate, it's a supposed Republic, like Rome, it prefers establishing "client kings", only directly intervening militarily where these fail to control their people in its interest, again emulating Rome. Even the US slogan, "one out of many", is reminiscent of the Roman foundation myth where, in order to populate the new city, a message went out across Italy for the poor & dispossessed to come to the fledgling city, which subsequently became a mighty empire. The birth story of the US is essentially a parallel tale.
There were famous chefs in the 19th and 20th century too. Learning how to cook is always a good thing. If anything having a population that depends on unhealthy, ready-made hyperprocessed foods is more indicative of a society's decline.
Even using a term like "Global periphery" to describe countries like the BRICS- the majority in population and economy, is telling of a continued Eurocentric prejudice.
@@zachmasters7397 I think it's going to continue to be challenged by countries as western and chinese hegemony continues to fade. Soft power is a country's ability to influence or exert control over other countries, regions, or groups of people without the use or threat of military or physical force.
@@jsccs1 Trump takes office Jan 21st, he picked Marco Rubio as Secretary of State, Rubio is the biggest Warhawk in the Senate, I'm not happy about it, especially since Trump said no new war's, hopefully Trump's just using Rubio as a pit bull on a short leash, peace through strength mentality, yet Rubio wanted to bomb and invade Iran, in the past send troops to the Ukraine, he's changed his stance on the Russian Ukrainian war, yet he's still a Warhawk on Iran, he also wants to send more Troops to Japan to show force in the region to China, we shall see.
I am a bit puzzled that Peter Heather of all people, whose books I enjoyed reading has forgotten that in the 5th century the Roman Empire did n't actually collapse. Only half of it did, the Western half, the Eastern half carried on for another thousand years
It is half-a-century after the Moon landing and the economics profession cannot figure out planned obsolescence in automobiles. Economists do not talk about the Net Domestic Product. The depreciation in that equation is for Capital Goods only. Consumers are supposed to go into debt for stuff designed to become obsolete for economists to ignore the depreciation. But it got added to GDP when it was purchased. .
@@breft3416 If Russian sanctions are anything to go by (and their positive impact on Russia's economy and Eurasian/Global South trade), Donnie might end up tariffing Europe and the US into submission.
@Dr Bistani could you please come up with an episode solely on immigration. How collective identity may contribute to the progress of GB in days to come....If not then how similar or different the GB nationhood will be from other European Nations.
I was enjoying the video until about 50 minutes in, when he makes the statement "The Vladamir Putin of his time." I'm sorry what? That comment exposed him as either deranged or a charlatan. And that's when I turned it off. Putin's legacy in Russia is the exact opposite of what he described, and anyone with eyeballs could see that. It's undeniable.
Yes, I agree. Comparing Henry VIII and Putin with reference to a "disastrous war" was muddle-headed to say the least. What an odd statement to come out with given where Russia is today. Putin has clawed back the Russian-speaking regions in eastern Ukraine as well as Crimea and there is little doubt that what Russa has, Russia will now hold in perpetuity. Does Peter Heather really believe that Russia is on the back foot?
@@Raymond-d2l7n The rebuilding and rise of Russia from the ash heaps from the time Putin took over is easily and objectively one of the greatest political achievements of any statesmen in modern human history. The Russia that Putin inherited was a truly dark society on the edge of collapse. "Bandits" controlled everything, right to the highest levels, with the oligarchs empowered by the US "shock therapy" regime. Everything and everyone was on sale, including grandma. All sorts including sick deviants from Western Europe flocked to the East to take advantage. I'll just leave it at that. The lawlessness was astounding. Open prostitution of children on the streets. Putin brought Russia back from edge of abyss and restored it as a world power punching well above it's weight. I don't care what you think about Putin, reality is reality and the numbers speak for themself. And if you want to claim that Putin's Russia is authoritarian, then I would point you to the fact that the United States "land of the free" has a higher incarceration rate than Russia, and every other country on this earth including even the highest order of evidence free UN estimates for North Korea. That's right, the US's actual verified incarceration rate is even higher than the highest number anyone could imagine to claim for North Korea.
Yeah but after 8th century it was basically turned into a rump state that paid tributes to either Arabs, Turks, or the Mongols as its borders kept shrinking
Fascinating discussion and ideas! If I may add something, Europe became prosperous partially because of COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGES: that's why you get Ukrainian wheat, Dutch cheeses, Italian leather, French perfumes, Colognes, Scotch, etc and etc. To get all these stuff to the right markets fundamentally prompted the existence of commerce and hence capitalism. The latent prerequisite of that flow of goods is the word COOPERATION. Looking at the world today with all the sanctions, that word is more often shunt upon than embraced. The irony of it all is that one now starts to wonder why the economies in the Collective West are having such a rough times.......Coo-coo for coco pops.......
@@Sean-p3oyou mean the vast majority of people in the western worlds pension holders… you want to get rid of that and distribute it equally while not upsetting them nor providing an alternative to pensions. People would rather stay wealthy
I am trying to migrate from Serbia to the UK or Ireland. Having spent a month in Manchester, a sentence of an Indian friend of mine in the same boat really stuck with me: "I am shocked. I expected the West to be quite alive and promising. Instead-I see a bunch of half-asleep zombies. What happened?"
Thank you for this very unique presentation. The topic is very current, relevant and offered great insight into how empires decline. Relative than absolute decline, erosion at the periphery more than at the core. But I feel the core has to be corrupt/rotten/complacent or arrogant in order for the periphery to make any headway at all, much less big headway.
1:27:15 the strong public asset balance of Norway: Of course, this is technically true but; 1. The investment fund buys up assets outside of our borders, mandated by law. The pension returns were downgraded in 2011 for all born after 1964, and now the age will go up from 67 to individual tiers of 70 and up. 2. Norway has had the same austerity policies after the 2008 bailouts, and housing has gone up from 2-4 x mean income to 7-10+ x mean income. 3. Our public sector has sold off (privatised) in all sectors except water and to some extent health & welfare. The energy market created after 1991 hits everyone across borders. Half of our councils were in the red 2023, about 2 in 5 now failing legal demand in primary welfare and education. 4. Our recent Labour govt. has not changed this (parallel to UK Labour and US Democrats), and the far right & conservative two party coalition will get a large majority next year. The far right probably gets the PM, if trends hold. This is not the story that should have been told about the single NW European country still having a huge public surplus. Most is in pure finance, not in productivity nor investment. Capital and agency sits with the few - and a state unwilling to leave neoliberal ideas behind. Socialism has no standing among very frustrated young adults, even their parents can’t imagine it. Individualism and anger shifts the narrative towards “law & order”, xenophobia and nationalism. It’s scary and alienating, feeding itself…
People should look at Britains imperial collapse Rome is far to far in the past I’d also add this obsession with Rome’s imperial history is unhealthy and shouldn’t be held as something to be followed for the most part
It’s difficult to project Britain’s decline onto anything else because it was destroyed by the shocks of the second and primarily the First World War. You can’t really replicate or project that effect onto anything else
It’s difficult to project Britain’s decline onto anything else because it was destroyed by the shocks of the second and primarily the First World War. You can’t really replicate or project that effect onto anything else
That's so true. Also, we should always be wary when we get these sayings about complex socio-economic phenomena. They sound logical and tidy and we might beven be pre-disposed to believe them because we have heard the saying before. We alwaya have to ask (or hope the interviewer asks) further questions!
we need smart laws regulating real estate and rent seeking. Caps on the amount of properties a person can own. A scaling increase in property tax for owing past a certain point. caps on the amount of profits you can charge for a rental beyond the maintenance cost. mandatory maintenance standards and sidelining the money as a built in insurance. We can't end real-estate markets from where we are. We can't de-comodify housing for the same hurdles but we can heavily de-incentivize monopolization and hording. There should also be perpetual push or incentive or both to expand supply from the government. Regulate the market from both ends and the middle will conform.
i am so sick of people using 'the west' as a term... it has lost all meaning. 'the west' usually encapsulates europe, north america, sometimes brazil, sometimes argentina, often japan as well as south korea and australia and new zealand - sometimes even turkey.
'The West' means the American Empire. All the countries that have US military bases on them are 'the west', there are plenty of other countries that qualify, but that's the main qualification.
@@twoeggcups The West refers to countries in West Europe, the USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The countries referred to as 'the West' may change according to the context. However, most of them are Christian nations.
The term 'the West' doesn't usually include Brazil, Argentina, Japan, S Korea. The West are mostly to advanced first-world nations which are Christian, and in the Western hemisphere (excluding Australasia which are former colonies of the British).
Probably not, China's on the rise and it needs a lot of resources to get into that economically stable green zone. That means its gonna chew a lot'a countries resources, even more so that it has two times more citizens the the US. So it's probably gonna be twice as worse.
How can you talk about the roman empire "between hadreans wall and the euphraties" and ignore the fact that the eastern roman empire lasted until the 15th century? This tells me that the collapse was slow and protracted, which actually lasted a millennium.
The closest descent of the Roman Empire in the modern world-a continental landmass where citizenship is organised around allegiance to culture rather than ethnicity in a fundamentally Christian society-is, in fact, Brazil, much to the shock of the Churchillian view of the affluent West, for which the Western periphery is not considered part of the West.
It's the US, they copy-pasted as much as they could from it. The Roman Empire was also Orthodox, not Catholic. The pope was just another patriarch and under the emperor's rule while Rome was controlled by the so-called Byzantines.
Yes, the West is declining economically. But the Western ideas of science, capitalism, military tactics, weapons, culture, democracy, freedom, plurality. Those ideas are not in decline. Is it not a fact that the East has prospered because they "copied" the West! Both Japan and China first "Westernized " then became a great power.
Clearly like so many you think that you will overcome it all. Read your Bible...the first will become last and the last first....the boats will head the direction they're coming from
around 27:50 this play into the propaganda that everyone got richer... there might have been a lot of money, but the working class got poorer and poorer.
@Aaron, meant as constructive criticism: your interview work is still BRILLIANT, while your tone and style on the evening shows has become smug and annoying to an unwatchable degree, which is frustrating because I love Novara Media, it's a beautiful thing and so important
i think the guests' economics is way off base. Strip-mine the wealth of the super-rich and you can have growth in the real economy for a good bit right there.
Absolutely! I listen to these sorts of talks all the time and at some point someone will say what a great future we can have if we do this or that and never mention climate change. We are effed! End of story!
Aaron Bastani is the best interviewer in the business. By far! This interview is a masterpiece. Interviewing two specialists in a very complex discipline and obviously having done the basic homework he structures the whole thing so that, at the end, all the complexities are made accessible to the rest of us. Bravo!
Came here to say this!
The wealth gap and siphoning of wealth upwards to fewer and fewer people is a big cause.
Agreed
What’s your opinion on a millionaire like Owen Jones, a so-called left wing Marxist activist, begging for donations to fund trips to America?
@@Redsleather 'Millionaire' in 2024 Britain means 'owns a house'.
@@Redsleather That's awfully specific, why did you single this man out?
Just like in Rome...
Almost got through the day without thinking about the Roman Empire - maybe tomorrow
I'll remind you tomorrow.
Et tu Brutus?
@@ClaySanford-e8o Doh! Not again!
think eastern roman empire actually
@@firstlast-pt5pp 👉😑👈 la-la-la-la
Collapses are gradual until they aren’t
exactly now with trump becoming president again that could very much happen within a couple or so years
Yes, tipping points can be remarkably catastrophic.
We're only ever 9 missed meals away from mass civil unrest.
A sovereign country issues its own currency and so can afford anything that is priced in its own currency. If 'borrowing' means that then it is only a book entry. It is not borrowing as we understand it.
@@patriciasmith88 perhaps responded to wrong thing?
Ya can’t eat money tho
I worked as a tour guide in Rome for 6 years, and studying their collapse has always made me feel we were on the precipice, so listening to this conversation was somewhat reassuring that my conclusions were not crazy. This is the kind of conversation that kids should be shown in school and then discuss...we need to change the conversation much more widely.
I think it might be too late. The west will need to embrace their destiny
Palestine isn’t why she lost: Americans DO NOT vote on foreign policy. Most voters were voting on how they felt about the cost of living, wages , inflation etc
Wrong. A genocide was a red line. Hundreds of thousands felt that way
@@RockstarWreckeryou are right. Which is beyond insane. That's there thing. But either way both candidates morally and historically needs to be with Isreals however it plays out. So to think one is gonna be better on it makes no sense. Actually Trump on record has a strained relationship with BIBI...He might cut the funding before Kamala.
You're probably right overall, but I can't imagine backing a genocide as an ostensibly left wing party wasn't part of the reason for the lower turn out
Actually, most Americans could care less about what their country does overseas. Majority of Americans ignore what the country's military/other agencies do outside the US. The military strength of the US is a part of American identity. I knew way too many Americans in the US military lol. I myself was going to be one of them.
Womp womp. Maslow's hierarchy of needs explains it all. Tough to care about genocide in another country (which happens all over the world in fact, look at Africa) when you don’t have enough money for gas to get to work.
John Rapley's contribution is very interesting and informative as he's lived in Asia. He emphasises how the developing countries contributions will continue to impact the West's slow decline. The decline is inevitable because of bad political leaders with their heads in the sand. The hubris of former colonisers prevent them from understanding their importance in the world is much less than they think. Sleepwalking into disaster.
It's simpler than that. Finite resources are indeed finite, and the human population has mushroomed based entirely upon temporary fossil-fuel wealth, with our current (wholly unsustainable) economic system as the result. This complex and vulnerable mechanism is now our only life support system. Bad political leadership (unmanageable problems) is simply a result of the decline which we now see beginning - becasue populations will never knowingly vote to have less wealth. The downhill slide might not be slow at all. We are probably on the gentle roll-in at the top of a rather steep ramp. Isolated Amazonian tribes and distant agrarian societies probably have the best chance of survival - if dispossesed westerners don't exploit them into oblivion just prior to their own demise.
@@davidpalk5010 We just have to keep repeating the Capitalist mantra "If everybody were poor, we'd all be rich".
Exactly thanks
@davidpalk5010 "It's simpler ... It's simply that ..."
There's a warning right there. We all have hobby horses, and "simply" is a reasonable equine marker for readers.😊
Edit: not disagreeing, though. 😏 And I particularly liked the reference to Amazonian tribes. Presumably you don't mean the Bezosians ...
@@T-aka-T Lol...
Fascinating discussion. Really enjoyed having both John and Peter there. Fantastic work from Novara.
As an Australian I think about taking my three post grads and leaving for a more affordable, less neoliberal capitalist country all the time.
Me too.
You might want to check before you leave if the county you want to move to will recognize any of your degrees
Yes, I'm struggling - lost all my money and house during the pandemic; starting again at plus 50 and a professional. I'll never own a house of be able to retire.
Where would you go?
@@beccafranklin6683 where your money are worth more... for the time being.
we are so Western centric that we often forget that the Roman Empire survived in the form of Eastern Roman Empire (the richest provinces) until the fall of Costantinople in 1453, and what we consider Western Europe is basically the Roman Empire minus the provinces conquered by the Arabs. Still, nothing is eternal, but that was quite a long time ...
the northern nations never were part of the west - they didnt bother to explain that, lazy fake pseudo historians - just selling books full of cliches
Which I really missed from this analysis. I was interested in seeing their take on why Western Rome collapsed while Eastern Rome held strong.
@@vintagechairlifts9902 The main two reasons for why the east survived while the west fell were that:
1) It never lost it's richest provinces. During the 5th century, only the east's Balkan provinces were seriously damaged by invasions, while the much more valuable lands of Egypt, Syria, and Anatolia were safe. That meant they still had the money to pay for professional Roman troops to fight back. But the west lost it's most valuable province (Africa) and so was economically crippled, leaving it basically powerless against the barbarian invaders and had to pay for cheaper barbarian mercenaries for the military instead....
2)...which leads onto point 2, that the military had a strangehold over the Western government but not the eastern government. Because the west was under more external pressure, it had to remain more militarised which gave the army much more power in politics to the point that when one of the barbarian mercenary leaders, Odoacer, deposed the last Western emperor, he faced practically no resistance. Meanwhile the east was less militarised during this time and so subsersive elements in the army didn't have enough power to dictate state policy.
Western Rome was infiltrated and devoured per cicero. Eastern byzantine empire endured because they did not permit that to happen.
Everyone involved has such a detailed and nuanced meta understanding that is definitely needed in America. Thank you
All ive begged for in this country is more nuance. Its a lost art :(
This conversation is doubly joyful for intelligent questions and equally sharp and enlightening answers.
Fascinating that there's a congruence in Roman and American empire facing decline precisely when they seemed at their zenith.
One would only think the American empire is at its zenith if they are among the small percentage of affluent classes benefiting from the failed neoliberal project.
But that’s exactly what Zenith or Peak means😂😂😂everything is downhill from there. By definition, you can’t have reached the peak if you’re still going uphill.
@@junli6065 you’re nitpicking here. their argument is that neither of the two empires showed willingness to accept the inevitable decline; and that they viewed the zenith as a permanent condition
Social contract works in both ways. If the people in power don't take care of the people, people turn around and find solutions. If there's no solutions anymore people turn the table over in a violent way.
I did see a lecture in which the lecturer stated four components that contribute to Empires falling. 1. A dysfunctional political system. 2. Military overreach. 3. High levels of government indebtedness 4. I can't remember this reason, it might be rising inequality leading to civil unrest. The first three reasons and definitely the fourth, I seem to remember anyway, apply to America. As for 'the West', BRICS and the opportunity it affords to Africa not having to suffer Western pillaging, is starting to lead to the decline here in the West.
You believe the dictatorships of China and Russia are coming to the rescue of the global South. I fear you will be disappointed.
There is a major problem happening today. First and foremost is that industrialization people moved into cities and started having less babies. Second, in 1960 the birth control pill was introduced and then people started dramatically having less and less babies. Three major countries has run out babies and have now running out of working age adults. 1. Russia. 2. China, and the third is China. Which means we see a collapse of these three powers leaving only the United States of America only Super Power in World.
Chris Hedges is most likely the source
Nailed it
Sir John Glubb's essay, "The Fate of Empires and Struggle for Survival" covers 6 specific stages of decline. The essay is cited in the first ten minutes of the documentary film, "Four Horsemen." You can get the free .pdf of the essay online and read it. I did.
culturally in the UK it was also 1999, and the decline was immedate. Listen to the music, from the uphoria of the millenium, in 2020/21 everyone went home, the Iraq war crushed hope of change, the music turned dark, the streets turned dark, our generation all started looking overseas for alternatives. It was immediate and it was the economy that was slow to realise!
Ppl in UK are kept unaware of the huge brain drain that is currently going on in the country. One of the reasons NHS is in crisis is because the doctors ( Yes they are highly qualified professionals and huge intellectual and social assett) have gone abroad in mind numbing numbers.
The UK ad a global power had gone a long time ago. It the US and all others are just irrelevant.
The issue is that people don't understand that bad governance and bad foreign policy is the main cause, and the government shirk responsibilities and blame foreigners and foreign countries instead.
It's an empire, hellbent on preserving its rule of the world.
Simply a morphed version of the British Empire.
Both used the divide-and-rule strategy of power to
1) get where they were, using a geographical position of power (geopolitics), and
2) protect the own status as ruler of the world, by dividing the rest of the planet.
The US Empire is like a meta empire - an empire of empires.
@@twoeggcupsI'm sure all other empires experienced this hubris too
Better to be under British rule than an archaic Muslim caliphate.
The current wealth of "the west" is based wholly upon two factors; fossil fuels and imperialism. Both of those things have ended for Europe, and will inevitably eventually end for the US.
@@davidpalk5010 Scientific ingenuity and innovation is the West's biggest wealth generator.
"If Trump were to be elected and bring in his policies of cutting/restricting trade, it would probably tip the US - probably after a couple of years of boom - into absolute decline." - was this recorded before Musk's comments about "short-term pain"? Cause it sounds like maybe they're going to skip the boom & just cut directly to the decline.
It's not about trade, it's about military power.
LOL.
If the US goes into decline, the rest of us will be there much sooner.
I believe jd Vance literally wants to devalue USD to make manufacturing more attractive.
@@twoeggcups Exactly commerce is alwasy down wind from power as marketplaces themselves need security to even exist.
I really enjoyed this interview well done novara
Would you see a discussion like this on BBC News?...
Nah.
The West collapsed in 1939. WW2 dominoed the European empires into oblivion. America was just the standalone offshoot Western empire, and now it's collapsed into a dictatorship, just like Spain, the first global Western empire did. Kind of poetic in a grotesque way
After the collapse of the USSR, the mask came off and America revealed its true colours as something too post-modern and globalist to be recognisable as the west anymore. The hopes for reviving the heart of western civilization fades with each passing day.
Yes. It’s collapsing.
Other countries linked to the dollar would also collapse. Now, you realise your comment was wrong.
Yeah we're doomed.
@@Craig121000 yeah that's why the title is ""the west" the others wont be so stubborn as to stay on Americas tit
@@Craig121000 They are far more aware of that fact than the US
I just think it’s fascinating at how the leadership class of collapsing empires are usually the last to know the wheels have come off the wagon and doom is nigh
How is it that the impact of years of austerity hasn't been mentioned let alone assessed, this increased the wealth gap, the virtual flatlining of the economy. Every eminent economist as well as the L.S.E unilaterally agreed that this was a disastrous policy.
Even before watching: I’ve been saying this for decades. The signs where and are all around us. Lack of productivity, decadence, playing the blame game, populism, etc. Everybody wants to rule the world but nobody takes responsibility.
As an artist I can't help feel that art and architecture in particular are canaries in the mine for civilizations. The rise of modernism and brutalism and the complete rejection of grace and beauty indicate that to me civilization in the west started to die a good century ago and we are now in the final stages.
modernism is full of grace and beauty... so there's goes that theory.
Brutalism can look really cool if properly maintained.
European civilisation committed suicide in 1914.
@@damoncook3339 if you really believe that it may be you are just a child of your time.
@@johnsinclair4621 Yep, the desire to be "cool" is another symptom.
1) Ignorance 2) Arrogance and, consequently, 3) Moral Degeneracy.
You are the exact kind of person they mock in this talk. Congratulations for taking the bait.
"Moral Degeneracy" - what does that mean?
@@Balloonbot corruption ? Fentanyl prescriptions for money ? Complicity with the gaza genocide ? Etc...
So manie ?
funny how Anglos always identify with the Romans but never see the similarities they have with Carthage.
Maritime powers, in control of global trade, financiers and merchants, ruled by said interest groups, not giving a sh$t about "values' and "culture" if there is any amount of profit to be made, not being able to fight their own wars but relying on mercenaries and bought proxies, strong ascending continental powers being the bane of their existence.
but ofc no one wants to project its future on the salted fields of Carthage, but hey that's what nukes are for.
"Anglos"
It's happening across the West. Greeks are in no position to lecture anyone.
There are Three civilizations set to collapse this because of industrialization and birth control pill this affect will cut their populations in half in the next twenty years. First, is Russia, second is China, and third is Germany. So what we will see is "Globalization" start to fail and we will go back to time more closer to where we at before World War II with far less trade and more pirates on the open oceans.
The problem that you are facing is that America is getting stronger while other major competitors are failing.
Carl Schmitt's argument in Land and Sea
America is not getting stronger. It is getting into more debt. It's strength is a paper tiger. They can't even take out the Houthis....
Another brilliant pod. Novarra and not too many others actually spelling out what's happening in our world.
Meanwhile.... everyone else listening to 'liars and stupid' (Peter heaths description, not mine!)
This idea of the Roman Empire being at its peak the moment before its collapse brings to mind a population of bacteria in a Petrie Dish with a limited supply of nutrients doubling and doubling and reaching its maximum at the moment before the collapse.
So 1999 was the peak, but how long is a moment in history?
Honestly feels like about a 8-10 years
Rome peaked before the Third Century Crisis. Everything after that is a long but gradual trending down.
I imagine America will also have a long but gradual decline, unless it decides to go out in a blaze in WW3.
Thank you Aaron. Salience a good word. The Romans paid soldiers in salt. The Romans also salted the fields of those they defeated. The word also has relevance in modern psychology: the salience of present stimuli points to the the fact that consciousness is experienced as a field with a margin and a center (William James).
Canal owners paid navvies in bread and ale too...
That collapse cannot come quickly enough
❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
You fool.
@@twoeggcupsexplain yourself
Do you really want to live in former civilized countries now lawless and dominated by criminal gangs where rape, murder, theft and perhaps even slavery are now a common everyday occurence?
Oh, please. After you sir! I insist!..
Surely, any serious discussion of Western civilizational decline and the possible collapse of the Euro-American empire should include a deep analysis of the seismic demographic changes underway in western countries related to rapidly falling birth and fertility rates.
However, this far-reaching issue is mentioned quite in passing from 1:01:20 and discussed for less than three minutes.
As I understand it though, in the year 1900, Europeans and their progeny in the diaspora (Americas, Australia, Oceania etc,) constituted about 30% of the 1.6 billion people on earth. However, demographers now say that by the year 2100, this same cohort will constitute less than 10% of the estimated 10.3 billion people on earth.
How can a civilization/empire survive such a dramatic swing in its relative share of the world's total population in only 200 years and avoid decline and collapse?
I think you're hitching an entho-racial wagon to a cultural horse, so to speak. I think their use of Imperial Rome as a case study serves as a template for thinking about Western Empire, that is, a political and economic entity glued together by shared values, political philosophy, epistemology, etc. Tying the fate of Western Empire to the demographic fate of people descended from Europe poses some odd issues, for one, the fact that Western nations do not have an official ethnic basis for citizenship, although, as your comment demonstrates, we do carry an imagined one, that modern Western Empire or civilization has some sort of one-to-one relationship to people of European descent. How do bloodlines determine whether or not someone subscribes to the Constitution of the United States, believes in the centrality of private property to individual liberty, or that humans possess inalienable rights?
Fantastic discussion. The only thing missing from the final summary was any discussion of the environmental problems we are facing and how they affect economics.
Really enjoying listening to this. Thank you.
We needed Ash on this show. What is their argument, Aaron? Tax super wealth? Wealth redistribution, public ownership of housing? These two and you are holding your cards very close. The American says we need to have a conversation: Let's have it.
The UK is deliberately set up to make the rich richer, and the poor poorer. The housing crisis could easily be solved if the planning for houses and land were made easily accessible. The cheapest houses for the homeless could be built with modern materials for £30,000.00 approx. according tot he Big issue owner.
Ash 🙄
Talks like a shy Marxist. All the rhetorical weapons are there, but he obviously feels it would give the game away and he would sell less books.
The guests are right on the spot.Emperor Caracalla extended the citizenship to all free people living in the empire(212AD).By fifth century the concept of a Roman was geographical not ethnic one.
Hey lost me at, the "we can grow forever bit," like we are not a climate crisis.
Climate 🙄
Ecological destruction is far more important than climate change
Yeah, suggesting infinite growth on a finite planet with finite space (without encroaching on areas we really need to rewild or protect) to live and grow food, finite fresh water, finite energy, finite capacity to absorb polution. Finite time before all of these factors close in on us rapidly, compounding on each other. I wonder what exactly is he suggesting can grow infinitly?
Although i have just read that there is research to suggest a decoupling of GDP from energy use has taken place in a number of countries over the last 20 years, even accounting for energy used in production of imported goods (Hannah ritchie 2023) - Maybe he is citing this trend and assuming it can be replicated for all economies?
@@ciriusp "Infinite growth" does set off alarm bells for sure, but in the context could be alluding to export of expertise, education, more efficient tech, etc. - things without a carbon footprint per se. I still think the "growth mindset" is repellent, just playing devil's advocate..
We can grow at 3% per capita easily for the next 200 years, which would be average consumption will be 300 times current consumption in 200 years. The reason this is possible is because of technology. Putting solar on less than 1% of the USA land would provide for 100% of current energy needs. Desalination can provide for much more water. Betting against technology and human ingenuity goes against the improvement in technology over the last 200 years.
@@omarb155 Yeah, what technology have to got to reverse topsoil loss? Fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides is destroying the soil microbiome we need in order to still have agriculture.
18:00 India and China were the driving factors of global economy and declined very quickly. A small fact missed out was the impact of colonialism. They didnt collapse due to debt and decadence.
India wasn’t even a country lol. Ridiculous point.
@jrton1366 Not only India. There are no countries back then dummy. Countries were only formed in Europe after treaty of westphalia.
@ India didn’t exist after the treaty of Westphalia? England, for example, existed a single kingdom continuously from the 9th century. The kingdom was a singular tax base which redistributed money on infrastructure and the military. No such subcontinent wide such structure existed in India. Pointless to claim it as a whole.
Aaron is among his own people, namely british historians.
these people are not historians - for history look dr Roy Casagrandra
I would be curious to hear more about what underlying "assumptions" Rapley disagrees with vis a vis Modern Monetary Theory, because I know that the maths (and the accounting identities) are unquestionably correct. Usually with MMT detractors there is some misconception that its proponents believe that there are no limits, but that's fundamentally incorrect. There ARE limits, and they are real resource availability (including labour). There are also stringent requirements around the capacity to tax -- and right now the burgeoning billionaire class is an indication that our taxation system is no longer fit for purpose
This!!!! 💯
Hate to say it, but Trump ain't going to be any better. He actually might be worse, but people are willing to make that gamble.
And we know that the gamble house never looses, but they always make new loosers...
How is it a gamble? It’s a gamble like jumping into a volcano is a gamble.
By most metrics, things have improved underJoe Biden. but most people aren’t watching media that actually deals in facts they’re watching Fox News or one of the many far right Internet streamers
He might be worse. Or he might be better. There are two wars raging. He's pledged to end one for sure. And he wants the other war brought to an end. If he just ends the Ukraine war, that's better than Biden/Harris.
*"The forest was shrinking, but the trees kept voting for the axe, for the axe was clever and convinced the trees that because his handle was made of wood he was one of them."*
Unfortunately I agree
59:57 excellent point by Aaron there
An important contribution.
What has happened? There is no sound.
Aaron was telling again how much he can bench press, but his father should not listen in.
😂
As a non economist and after 3 minutes of listening it seems to me as a non specialist the story is simple and as follows: the colonies gave the west the wealth which they stole and plundered, killing hundreds of millions across 5 centuries. That period ended and the natural growth of the plundered nations began a rebirth. Second, the insane idea to transfer manufacturing to China, which resulted in trash flooding the world and vast fortunes being pocketed by Corporate managers, turned China into a powerhouse thanks to the greed of the criminal quartet that rules the west, the Bankers, Lawyers, CEOs and Politicians. Note that while Billions upon Billions have been paid as fines for criminal activity by Corporations and Banks not a single manager has gone to prison. The algorithm was the criminal apparently, no human was involved! As gaming the system became commonplace, fewer gave their all, and decline started there, too. Obviously once China reaches similar prosperity it too will grow much more slowly, while India will take much longer and probably face internal strife for civilisational reasons. Oh, I could go on for ever. Hope you get the gist of what I wish to highlight. Trump back will put high stress on the mechanisms that operate across the countries, with no evidence the so called leaders have either the intelligence or the common sense to navigate a path forward. Big trouble ahead is entirely possible. Extreme mediocrity, malevolence and greed today drive nations. Wisdom exists in quiet corners here and there, watching impassively, as the wretched Sapien unaware marches to the precipice. Happy Weekend.
Absolutely right...
China’s always been an economic powerhouse. Why else was Columbus and all those explorers looking for a new route to China? Between tea, silk and pottery, they were producing a lot of wealth. If not for opium, invasion and looting by the “nasty Europeans”, China wouldn’t have collapsed so totally. If anything, China’s current attitude of development by any means was motivated by the West.
Europe unfortunately plundered its colonies rather than invested into making them sovereign European ethnostates.
Fantastic discussion. Have already bought the book for myself and my father for Xmas!
Utterly gripping! All three speakers and their insightful analysis.
Private debt in the West is more significant than national debt, and to whom wealth accrues.
Very insightful discussion, looking forward to reading the book and reflecting on the subject!
A humble offering for the almighty algorithm.
Fascinating stuff - another great topic and more great guests from NM - thanks to all the team for keeping my active brain fed and watered ❤
How can we even say the Roman empire collapsed when the Eastern part of it survived until the 15th century, and people from the area into even the Ottoman empire and 20th century were called and called themselves Roman?
There was a cultural offshoot that defined the eastern Roman as deferent . The western empire. Did have massive rapid simplification of urban life as a separate entity. Your argument is not wholly incorrect but there is a functional as allogry here
I love Peter Heather as I remember him on "The Secrets of Ancient Empires." One of my favorite Roman documentaries.........
Most of times they fall by vanity and greed...
Lack of belief in One God.
The rest follow.
@chtadow13 nothing to do with God, only greed in motion
Never by greed! Greed is a human condition.
@SAW777777 it's more complex than you think.
J.D. Unwin, Sex and Culture
The premise of the book is that increased sexual freedom leads to civilization's decline while limited sexual freedom leads to civilization's advance.
Very few are against skilled labour immigration. A huge majority are against the immigration how it is done today.
They're eating the dogs! Really seems like something a person with rational prejudice say.
Great program!
The thesis seems well supported by the facts. But it's a bit disappointing that they don't mention other suggested mechanisms (such as Joseph Tainter's diminishing returns/increasing energy costs of complexity).
Historians just avoid entropy in my experience. It's frustrating. I bought that book in 1988 .... Still valid
Everyone didn't seem to think it was an issue when everything was made in Hong Kong when Britain had it. Now it is China where everything is made its a different story.
These guys are orientalists
Dear me. Aaron didn't listen to Stephanie Kelton during their interview, quite clearly. The sensibles on government deficits need to be able to tell me what level of debt or what level of deficit damages economic growth. None of them can. It is a part of he economic map marked "Here be monsters". I'll be interested in these counter-arguments against MMT when they can give me more than that.
He doesn't seem to quite grasp that MMT is a description of how the system works under the current framework. It isn't a list of policies or a hypothesis, it's a statement of facts based on analysis. Whatever policies you wish to derive from knowing the reality of how money functions is wholly separate from MMT. I'd love to have Richard J Murphy on Downstream to discuss Aaron's very weird and quite frankly ignorant view of what MMT is and isn't.
@@Morinaka25 He said the one thing people always say if they have no idea about MMT, ie "they say you can spend as much as you want". Very frustrating.
That’s a bizarre statement. You’re arguing that because I can’t precisely predict when I’ll die, there’s a good chance I’ll live forever?
@@davidthompson797 I do find it odd, because if he bothered to understand it in good faith, it would make him a better debater against the right, particularly on the topic of the kind of spending and investment policy he wants done. His continued misrepresentation, and seeming active dislike of the topic is utterly bizarre, and almost furthers the idea of how leftists are economically ignorant.
@@alst4817 It's not like that at all.
A feast for the intellect! ty novara
These two guests, no offence intended, seem a little dated in their assessments and ideas of the current geo political economic situation.
Thank you!! I started out by giving this a thumbs up (admittedly, I was distracted doing a household task while listening) but see my comment 44 min. after yours about the British "White Man's Burden" twit. It is a New World, yet some historians are weighed down and stuck far in the past!
@@markschneider3968 The political economist certainly is not stuck in the past. He made very strong points about living in Asia and witnessing for himself how developing nations would impact the 'empire' in a huge way. There would no longer dominate the world. Thank goodness.
Fantastic talk, thank you to all involved 🤙
Fac Romem Magnae Iterum (if my Latin is ok, it probably isn't). One mark of imperial decline are celebrity chefs, in the late Roman Empire recipe books from famous cooks, like Apicius, became popular, today we have TV chefs and their accompanying cook books. The US has, since its birth, been consciously trying to evoke the Roman Empire, it has a Capitol building like the temple of Jupiter in Rome, a Senate, it's a supposed Republic, like Rome, it prefers establishing "client kings", only directly intervening militarily where these fail to control their people in its interest, again emulating Rome. Even the US slogan, "one out of many", is reminiscent of the Roman foundation myth where, in order to populate the new city, a message went out across Italy for the poor & dispossessed to come to the fledgling city, which subsequently became a mighty empire. The birth story of the US is essentially a parallel tale.
Thank you , fascinating 👍
The American South before the Civil War was more like Ancient Greece and that was deliberate
There were famous chefs in the 19th and 20th century too. Learning how to cook is always a good thing. If anything having a population that depends on unhealthy, ready-made hyperprocessed foods is more indicative of a society's decline.
Celebrity chefs and gladiators (modern version are athletes/fighters).
Even using a term like "Global periphery" to describe countries like the BRICS- the majority in population and economy, is telling of a continued Eurocentric prejudice.
Biggest indicator is that American soft power is dead
I disagree that American soft power is dead. It's so ubiquitous it's recognised as the universal norm. It is now being challenged more openly, though.
@jsccs1 it has been challenged recently by week leadership, that ends now.
@@jsccs1Soft power?
@@zachmasters7397 I think it's going to continue to be challenged by countries as western and chinese hegemony continues to fade.
Soft power is a country's ability to influence or exert control over other countries, regions, or groups of people without the use or threat of military or physical force.
@@jsccs1 Trump takes office Jan 21st, he picked Marco Rubio as Secretary of State, Rubio is the biggest Warhawk in the Senate, I'm not happy about it, especially since Trump said no new war's, hopefully Trump's just using Rubio as a pit bull on a short leash, peace through strength mentality, yet Rubio wanted to bomb and invade Iran, in the past send troops to the Ukraine, he's changed his stance on the Russian Ukrainian war, yet he's still a Warhawk on Iran, he also wants to send more Troops to Japan to show force in the region to China, we shall see.
I am a bit puzzled that Peter Heather of all people, whose books I enjoyed reading has forgotten that in the 5th century the Roman Empire did n't actually collapse. Only half of it did, the Western half, the Eastern half carried on for another thousand years
It is half-a-century after the Moon landing and the economics profession cannot figure out planned obsolescence in automobiles.
Economists do not talk about the Net Domestic Product. The depreciation in that equation is for Capital Goods only. Consumers are supposed to go into debt for stuff designed to become obsolete for economists to ignore the depreciation. But it got added to GDP when it was purchased.
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Well said.
Best explanation of globalization I’ve heard. 27:51
I'm surprised there was no discussion about BRICS
BRICS is a overhyped organisation, in that the members are partly the biggest enemies to each other (f.e.: China vs India)
Because they’re nothing more than a media concoction?
Donnie will tariff them into submission.
Which proves my belief that the United States has been sabotaging Venezuela.
@@breft3416 If Russian sanctions are anything to go by (and their positive impact on Russia's economy and Eurasian/Global South trade), Donnie might end up tariffing Europe and the US into submission.
@Dr Bistani could you please come up with an episode solely on immigration. How collective identity may contribute to the progress of GB in days to come....If not then how similar or different the GB nationhood will be from other European Nations.
I was enjoying the video until about 50 minutes in, when he makes the statement "The Vladamir Putin of his time." I'm sorry what? That comment exposed him as either deranged or a charlatan. And that's when I turned it off. Putin's legacy in Russia is the exact opposite of what he described, and anyone with eyeballs could see that. It's undeniable.
I agree with you totally!👍
I thought that, I guessed he spent so much time studying antiquity, he probably just gets his current affairs from the Beeb
Yes, I agree. Comparing Henry VIII and Putin with reference to a "disastrous war" was muddle-headed to say the least. What an odd statement to come out with given where Russia is today. Putin has clawed back the Russian-speaking regions in eastern Ukraine as well as Crimea and there is little doubt that what Russa has, Russia will now hold in perpetuity. Does Peter Heather really believe that Russia is on the back foot?
@@Raymond-d2l7n The rebuilding and rise of Russia from the ash heaps from the time Putin took over is easily and objectively one of the greatest political achievements of any statesmen in modern human history. The Russia that Putin inherited was a truly dark society on the edge of collapse. "Bandits" controlled everything, right to the highest levels, with the oligarchs empowered by the US "shock therapy" regime. Everything and everyone was on sale, including grandma. All sorts including sick deviants from Western Europe flocked to the East to take advantage. I'll just leave it at that. The lawlessness was astounding. Open prostitution of children on the streets. Putin brought Russia back from edge of abyss and restored it as a world power punching well above it's weight. I don't care what you think about Putin, reality is reality and the numbers speak for themself. And if you want to claim that Putin's Russia is authoritarian, then I would point you to the fact that the United States "land of the free" has a higher incarceration rate than Russia, and every other country on this earth including even the highest order of evidence free UN estimates for North Korea. That's right, the US's actual verified incarceration rate is even higher than the highest number anyone could imagine to claim for North Korea.
And this is exactly when i stopped listening
Read Spengler’s ‘Decline of the West’ many years ago - how every civilisation has a spring-summer-autumn-winter teleos. Winter has come.
Isnt Spengler an National socialist?I would take his book with an grain of Salt then.
An opposite way of thinking : isnt it possible that things evolved on the periphery of the empire because of decline of central power ?
The Roman empire did not collapse, it split. The Eastern Roman empire existed for another 1000 years! Until 1453.
Yeah but after 8th century it was basically turned into a rump state that paid tributes to either Arabs, Turks, or the Mongols as its borders kept shrinking
59:57 - Aaron, can you clarify what you said here? Your mic went silent.
Yes please! That or YT censored it
Don't worry about it. Honestly if these three were capable of making their ideas clear you'd have noticed LONG before the 59th minute.
Fascinating discussion and ideas!
If I may add something, Europe became prosperous partially because of COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGES: that's why you get Ukrainian wheat, Dutch cheeses, Italian leather, French perfumes, Colognes, Scotch, etc and etc. To get all these stuff to the right markets fundamentally prompted the existence of commerce and hence capitalism. The latent prerequisite of that flow of goods is the word COOPERATION.
Looking at the world today with all the sanctions, that word is more often shunt upon than embraced. The irony of it all is that one now starts to wonder why the economies in the Collective West are having such a rough times.......Coo-coo for coco pops.......
Blackrock, Blackstone
Vanguard
Human Greed
@@Sean-p3oyou mean the vast majority of people in the western worlds pension holders… you want to get rid of that and distribute it equally while not upsetting them nor providing an alternative to pensions.
People would rather stay wealthy
I am trying to migrate from Serbia to the UK or Ireland. Having spent a month in Manchester, a sentence of an Indian friend of mine in the same boat really stuck with me: "I am shocked. I expected the West to be quite alive and promising. Instead-I see a bunch of half-asleep zombies. What happened?"
To be civilized means to be pious and ethical
Only if we could get people to act that way. It's not a real human trait.
@@SAW777777neither is flying in planes.
Thank you for this very unique presentation. The topic is very current, relevant and offered great insight into how empires decline. Relative than absolute decline, erosion at the periphery more than at the core. But I feel the core has to be corrupt/rotten/complacent or arrogant in order for the periphery to make any headway at all, much less big headway.
It’s been coming for a long time & all by design
1:27:15 the strong public asset balance of Norway: Of course, this is technically true but;
1. The investment fund buys up assets outside of our borders, mandated by law. The pension returns were downgraded in 2011 for all born after 1964, and now the age will go up from 67 to individual tiers of 70 and up.
2. Norway has had the same austerity policies after the 2008 bailouts, and housing has gone up from 2-4 x mean income to 7-10+ x mean income.
3. Our public sector has sold off (privatised) in all sectors except water and to some extent health & welfare. The energy market created after 1991 hits everyone across borders. Half of our councils were in the red 2023, about 2 in 5 now failing legal demand in primary welfare and education.
4. Our recent Labour govt. has not changed this (parallel to UK Labour and US Democrats), and the far right & conservative two party coalition will get a large majority next year. The far right probably gets the PM, if trends hold.
This is not the story that should have been told about the single NW European country still having a huge public surplus. Most is in pure finance, not in productivity nor investment. Capital and agency sits with the few - and a state unwilling to leave neoliberal ideas behind.
Socialism has no standing among very frustrated young adults, even their parents can’t imagine it. Individualism and anger shifts the narrative towards “law & order”, xenophobia and nationalism.
It’s scary and alienating, feeding itself…
How does the USA compare with the Britain's loss of empire?
I feel like Britain didn’t rlly collapse but just handed over the wheel
@@iseemtobelost8265 Although that literally happened in some British territories, the jewel in the crown of the US empire is Europe itself.
USA does not have any empire
Fantastic interview.
Wait, did he say the UK can potentially keep growing for infinity?!! YOU CANNOT HAVE INFINITE GROWTH ON A FINITE PLANET!!!
I figured that out at 18 in 1969. Infinite growth on a finite planet is illogical.
@@kp6215 What if the growth is in the area of haircuts and handjobs?
The total absence of the actually-existing planet earth (beyond 'resources' in terms of financial assets) in this converstion was pretty glaring.
@@annaspringbearthat is a different conversation.
Fascinating. Bought the book through Audible.
People should look at Britains imperial collapse
Rome is far to far in the past
I’d also add this obsession with Rome’s imperial history is unhealthy and shouldn’t be held as something to be followed for the most part
It’s difficult to project Britain’s decline onto anything else because it was destroyed by the shocks of the second and primarily the First World War. You can’t really replicate or project that effect onto anything else
It’s difficult to project Britain’s decline onto anything else because it was destroyed by the shocks of the second and primarily the First World War. You can’t really replicate or project that effect onto anything else
"All boats float" is only true when the most wealthy aren't THAT wealthy. Today, SOME boars float, others are sinking rapidly...
That's so true. Also, we should always be wary when we get these sayings about complex socio-economic phenomena. They sound logical and tidy and we might beven be pre-disposed to believe them because we have heard the saying before.
We alwaya have to ask (or hope the interviewer asks) further questions!
Oh Aaron! You had Stephanie Kelton on and you didn't understand a word!
we need smart laws regulating real estate and rent seeking. Caps on the amount of properties a person can own. A scaling increase in property tax for owing past a certain point. caps on the amount of profits you can charge for a rental beyond the maintenance cost. mandatory maintenance standards and sidelining the money as a built in insurance.
We can't end real-estate markets from where we are. We can't de-comodify housing for the same hurdles but we can heavily de-incentivize monopolization and hording.
There should also be perpetual push or incentive or both to expand supply from the government. Regulate the market from both ends and the middle will conform.
i am so sick of people using 'the west' as a term... it has lost all meaning. 'the west' usually encapsulates europe, north america, sometimes brazil, sometimes argentina, often japan as well as south korea and australia and new zealand - sometimes even turkey.
'The West' means the American Empire. All the countries that have US military bases on them are 'the west', there are plenty of other countries that qualify, but that's the main qualification.
NATO and NATO enthusiasts better?
@@twoeggcupsUS has 800 military bases...
@@twoeggcups The West refers to countries in West Europe, the USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The countries referred to as 'the West' may change according to the context. However, most of them are Christian nations.
The term 'the West' doesn't usually include Brazil, Argentina, Japan, S Korea. The West are mostly to advanced first-world nations which are Christian, and in the Western hemisphere (excluding Australasia which are former colonies of the British).
Some de-growth perspective was heavily needed in this conversation
I hope so this way the rest of the world will have a break
Lol. Understandable. There's gotta be a better way forward than that. Poetic justice sounds like karma, but it doesn't have to be like this.
Precisely.
💯
Probably not, China's on the rise and it needs a lot of resources to get into that economically stable green zone. That means its gonna chew a lot'a countries resources, even more so that it has two times more citizens the the US. So it's probably gonna be twice as worse.
❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤💯💯💗💗💗
Rome collapsed due to faulty monetary reforms: reliance on a rigid gold standard which led to military anarchy in the third cent.
All empires fall they don't know what hit them.
How can you talk about the roman empire "between hadreans wall and the euphraties" and ignore the fact that the eastern roman empire lasted until the 15th century? This tells me that the collapse was slow and protracted, which actually lasted a millennium.
The closest descent of the Roman Empire in the modern world-a continental landmass where citizenship is organised around allegiance to culture rather than ethnicity in a fundamentally Christian society-is, in fact, Brazil, much to the shock of the Churchillian view of the affluent West, for which the Western periphery is not considered part of the West.
Interesting, not heard of or considered that. Thanks for sharing
It's the US
It's the US, they copy-pasted as much as they could from it.
The Roman Empire was also Orthodox, not Catholic. The pope was just another patriarch and under the emperor's rule while Rome was controlled by the so-called Byzantines.
@@jasonhaven7170 The US is not a country of Latin tradition.
@@karinapflima neither is Brazil
Yes, the West is declining economically. But the Western ideas of science, capitalism, military tactics, weapons, culture, democracy, freedom, plurality. Those ideas are not in decline. Is it not a fact that the East has prospered because they "copied" the West! Both Japan and China first "Westernized " then became a great power.
Clearly like so many you think that you will overcome it all. Read your Bible...the first will become last and the last first....the boats will head the direction they're coming from
around 27:50 this play into the propaganda that everyone got richer... there might have been a lot of money, but the working class got poorer and poorer.
@Aaron, meant as constructive criticism: your interview work is still BRILLIANT, while your tone and style on the evening shows has become smug and annoying to an unwatchable degree, which is frustrating because I love Novara Media, it's a beautiful thing and so important
i think the guests' economics is way off base. Strip-mine the wealth of the super-rich and you can have growth in the real economy for a good bit right there.
The global 1% are pensioners
We ARE in a terminal state because of climate chaos and the recurring and escalating cost of disasters.
Absolutely! I listen to these sorts of talks all the time and at some point someone will say what a great future we can have if we do this or that and never mention climate change. We are effed! End of story!