Jeremy Corbyn and Yanis Varoufakis | HOW TO AVERT GLOBAL CATASTROPHE | Podcast 10

This podcast accompanies the acclaimed new docu series in the eye of the storm which follows the remarkable journey of Maverick Economist politician and whistleblower Janis veracis both the series and podcast explore the connections between power democracy capitalism and the deepening crisis of civilization the series is available to watch now details in the Description enjoy the conversation it seems that the situation is worsening the risks are increasing um I'd love to just hear your summary of where we are on the international stage at this point thanks R and thanks so much for inviting me on to

the call it's real pleasure to be here with you I was walking down a road in my constituency yesterday uh it's a public holiday so everybody was quite relaxed and um I met this um woman walking she was Chatting um and uh she said You know Jeremy it's a bit weird that nobody ever talks about peace anymore all the news is only ever about war and I said well to begin with I said what are you saying that to me for she said no no it's not about you it's about um the generality of it

and of course she's right we had a huge demonstration on Saturday again about Gaza 250,000 came um and that's the 13th National demonstration we've held in London since October and we We've got plenty more planned we're going to carry on holding him as long as necessary and but the death toll is appalling and the public are almost becoming anesthetized to the idea that it's somehow or rather a legitimate military Target to bomb hos hospital and then move it on a bit the news yesterday that um apparently Israel has bombed the um Iranian Consulate in Damascus

killing a number of people um clearly there's an intention By somebody probably Israel to widen the war to include Iran then the background with this the whole time is the war in Ukraine and the continual Supply of weapons by um mainly Western Europe and the USA to Ukraine and then at the same time supply of large amount of Weaponry from China um probably other countries through Russia to continue that war so we have this huge buildup of conflict uh all over the world and obviously the everpresent Danger that U NATO and Russia have both got

access to nuclear weapons Israel has access to nuclear weapons and we seem to me to be in almost a pre-ir World War situation where a series of interlocking security pacts begin to kick in and we then get into something really really dangerous and uh the language of peace is never used it's only about levels of conflict and intensity of conflict and in the case of Britain uh um military Expenditure called defense expenditure is is set to rise to 2.5% of uh GDP from just under 2% there are serious demands to raise it to 3% which

would be enormous by any stretch of the imagination and at the same time local government services which are key key providers of Social Services are all being cut back for lack of of money so it is the debate about peace and peace Alternatives and The causes of war that we have to have and just finish before we go over to yellis that um through our project the peace and Justice project we've been talking thinking about this quite a lot and we're publishing a book in September a live book in the sense it's going to be

something that's subject to a lot of public meetings and discussion about the power of the global arms trade uh with Andrew Feinstein and others involved in it it seems to me the power Of lobbying and the motor force behind all this is the enormous influence of the arms and aircraft industry um on the on the world and providing ever more lethal forms of Weaponry to kill people and at the end of it we now have 32,000 dead in um Gaza tens of thousands probably hundreds of thousands of dead in the Ukraine Russia war and uh

any conflict with Iran is going to kick off into thousands more and other Wars barely reported such as the onling Conflict in the Congo funded by um essentially funded by the mining interests of the world in order to get hold of cobalt and colwn and so we need to have this serious discussion about how you bring about not just a stop fighting actual peace which is about investment in people and and um social needs yeah jiannis what are your thoughts well the conversation you had on the streets of Islington with uh one of your neighbors

um reaffirms the Decision of dm25 and mea 25 are political movement here in the European Union uh to running the European Parliament elections uh in June um under the uh the triple Banner of Peace dignity and freedom uh and you know peace being the first of course the the number one because uh Jeremy described perfectly the the global warmongering the the Fanning of um the the Flames of um various Wars uh what we have here from From my perspective we you know anyone who knows how the state department and how the Pentagon works in the

United States knows that um it's not homogeneous you know there are different um offices within uh the state department within the Pentagon and you know they're quite independent and sometimes they even clash with one another um I I first came um to terms with this or became aware of that because in in in the case of gree's Military dict dictatorship there were could two two kudas being planned one by the Pentagon and one by the CIA independently of one another they they more or less had a little war between them you know the military offices

supported by the CIA versus the one supported by the Pentagon H and and the reason why I mentioned that is because it is important to understand uh the war in Ukraine as being uh one project of Washington and the new Cold War against China which is feeding and reinforcing the war in Ukraine being pursued by a different part of the American Administration so I remember 12 13 years ago I was having a discussion with a former Chief of Staff of NATO American Chief of Staff in um Brussels uh and he was a a republican appointee

uh George W Bushman not not somebody that U would be associated in any shape or form with the left and he was making the the argument Privately to me that NATO was Obsolete and Europe should not want it that's a George W bush man Chief of Staff of Nat and I said to him so why are you pursuing why why is the United States and of course they lack is in London in Brussels and Norway and so on in Greece why are they continuing with this NATO business and he said to me well there are

three reasons one is to keep Russia out the second one is to keep us in the United States and the Third one is keep Germany down keep Germany down I think that was quite significant significant statement and you can see that the world in Ukraine achieved all three uh the German economy is now in the process of deindustrialization as a result of the war in Ukraine not just that but it's an important part of it uh and that was a a project that has been running along NATO we know Victoria nand um since 2013 2014

pushing that plan but Then another part of the americ American Administration uh has been under both Trump and Biden pushing for the new Cold War against China and in in you know this R you've heard me talk about this before I think that the reason for that it's not Taiwan it's not nothing to do with the Chinese becoming aity uh it's got to do with the fact that China is the only country in the world that has um a very large concentration of the new new form of capital which is ruling uh Societies today I

call it Cloud Capital Al algorithmic capital China is the only country in the world that has a competitor to Google to Facebook to Amazon to um to financial applic apps and so on uh and this is the long-term strategy behind Biden's um ban on microchips but the new Cold War which is happening against China and the war the traditional nato expansionism in Ukraine uh they are sort of converging they're Coal lising because um with the for instance um the the um freezing of around 450 $450 billion dollar worth of Russian central bank money I'm not

judging it I'm just stating it for a fact by free freezing hundreds of billions of dollars of Russian um central bank money essentially the United States and Europe have signaled to oligarchs in Saudi Arabia in the United Arab Emirates in Indonesia in Malaysia all over Europe For that matter uh that their money is not safe in in in in the dollar payment system uh and a lot of that money is now being shifted over to the digital payment system of the Chinese which is Al at the same time uh being utilized by Putin in order

to um bypass the Western sanctions so the the two Wars are even though in my view in my analysis they are motivated by different parts of the American establishment they are Coalescing to create an overall Global a global uh Dynamic that feeds the war mongering that we discussed before that we are discussing here uh now Israel is uh always a show of its own uh because you know the nakba started in 1948 it continues to this day what's happening in Gaza is just a direct EXT extension of that Israel has agency I'm not so sure

that Biden is happy with the bombing of the Consulate in h Damascus of course he is complet utterly Spineless and he will never oppose it and he won't he will provide them with even more bombs to do it even if he if it's if it's not part of his planning but it doesn't matter because in the end as successive Israeli governments have proven uh it is is their um warmongering and their Perpetual War project which Now coalesces with uh the The Never Ending war in Ukraine project of the United States because that's what the United

States want to keep Germany down To keep Russia out and to keep themselves in and also to keep selling us here in Europe hugely expensive um liquefied natural gas from Texas and New Mexico uh they need to continue this war so um the the interest of the people of Ukraine uh who are the people who have been invaded for whatever reason Putin invaded the people of Ukraine need to be supported as the victims of invasion in the same way that the gazans should be Supported not just the gazans but the Palestinians all overall because their

country their homes their Olive grows have been occupied nevertheless the point I making is that the the champions of the people of Ukraine um in the form of moris Johnson of sunak of now Emanuel macron who wants to send he claims he wants to send he's just such a coward that he would never do it but he claims he wants to do it in order to to improve his ratings Prior to the European par election macron I'm referring to um they are presenting themselves as the chambers of people in in Ukraine but they they are

the the grave diggers of the people of Ukraine because this war was never going to end milit arily it can never be won by either side there are only losers on that on both sides dm25 we've been saying from the very very first moment that the only solution would be a kind of peace process uh under the United Nations uh opes with uh an agreement that uh the question of Crimea is uh kicked into the long grass to be discussed in the United Nations along the the solution the Cyprus issue for the next 50 years

um with uh an immediate ceasefire the return of um uh the Russian troops to Barracks to Barrack to their Barracks uh with a commitment on the west that Ukraine is not going to become become part of NATO uh even if it is something like along The lines of the Austria solution during the Cold War and the donbas area can become an area a bit like Northern irland with a good Friday kind of agreement with dual essential dual dual sovereignty um and and that proposal that we've been making now for two years which was ridiculed that

was completely demonized as being Putin's agenda is now going to be the best case scenario for the people of Ukraine uh after you know 200,000 300,000 people Have died we're going to end up where we should have been in the first place but it is functional this this Mega Death whether it is in uh Yemen whether it is in Gaza where it is in Ukraine perspect potentially uh in the South China Seas if the Cold War becomes a hot war between the United States and China this Mega Death is function to the interest of maintaining

American hegemony in a world where the American um capacity to Produce stuff to produce to manufacture in the capitalist way stuff um is shrinking to less than 9% of total GDP and that is the price we have to pay this warmongering for maintaining American Germany even though economically uh in terms of actually making things the United States is insignificant these days when I think about this situation I always come back to the fact that history cannot repeat itself Given the technology that now exists so since August 6th 1945 and the dropping of the nuclear bomb

on Japan we've had a technology that we we've known we cannot use and I think one way of understanding all that happened after 1945 is an attempt to redesign the international order to prevent major conflict between the superpowers the UN um the Breton wood system and and so On are we seeing a breakdown of that International order now and is that in part A generational thing that we forget the lessons that were leared about the value of Peace the world has moved a great deal since 1945 but the political structur have not moved with it

uh the UN structure is essentially a North Atlantic Construction of the end of the second world war Britain France USA Russia permanent members security Council China in its earlier Taiwan form and later in the People's Republic from also part of it because it's such a large country the rest of the world not represented except by election to the security Council on a termly basis and they don't have powers of veto either NATO uh was yes created in 1948 in formal sense but actually it came back to the Atlantic Charter of 1942 when um church and

Roosevelt essentially planned the post postor war Scenario where there would be um a Domination by the US with British support even Churchill recognized the British Empire was coming to an to an end but we now have a situation where the US economy is a completely different animal than it was then it is no longer the manufacturing Powerhouse of the world that is China the natural resources of the world are in part exhausted in the USA almost completely exhausted in most of Europe the natural Resources of the world lie in Africa and and Latin America uh

and those are the areas where there is huge um potential conflict coming down the line in reality already happening in the Congo which is the U biggest most mineral rich country in Africa um and so we do have an incredibly dangerous situation but the other scenario which is that whilst the 1945 to 50 construct was done by um nation states with a very strong Military basis they all had huge armies they all had huge military capabilities all of them did at that stage we now have a world power system that is much more dependent on

the lobbying power and the financial power of huge corporations who move vast amounts of money around the world really really um not very concerned about what nation states think and they are more powerful and totally unaccountable in any form and um if we're serious about a peaceful more Democratic world you have to start facing up to that reality and so janis's experience in finance and economics I mean do you yanis do you think there's any way we can ever bring these huge mega corporations under any sort of U accountability and control in uh short the

answer is a very disappointing no uh it cannot be done through the standard types of Regulation which regulated um you know let's say Standard oil or Rockefeller under Theodore ruselt uh because these days the fossil fuel industry is destroying the planet there's no doubt about that and they but they are uh struggling to extract the last drop of oil or the last drop of surplus value from the rest of us um they know that they are done they have another decade or so uh whether they will be done before the planet is done or vice

Versa uh I have no idea I'm not very optimistic about that but the main game now is not the fossil fuel industry the main game are the what I call the cloud list the owners of this Cloud Capital the algorith Capital that lives inside our phones and let me be very very precise here uh my latest calculations show that um around 35% of global GDP of global income 35% is now siphon off by these uh tech companies the companies that I call Cloud because they own the cloud uh it's not just amazon.com it's not just

Liu it's not just Uber it's not just Airbnb in let let let me give you an example which I find startling in Indonesia anybody who's been to Indonesia will have noticed for decades now for a century now as you're driving in rural areas you'll find that there are these warungs the wars are little tiny little um kiosks some of them are on wheels That sell everything from you know um drinks to you food stuff to uh sim cards for your phone three and a half million get that number three and a half million of these

WS have been purchased in the last three years by these Cloud alist firms including Jeff bases Enterprises a personal company belonging to Jeff bases which is on the side of Amazon uh in order to financialized the people in in Those Villages through the Ws which are now completely automated they are they they have become all networked using applications and what I call Cloud Capital um this is I'm saying this so that people don't think that I'm only talking about amazon.com which is a very Western thing right um the This Cloud capital is um is where

the game is now where the reason why I'm talking about the transition from capitalism to techn Feudalism is because these are digital foms that the owners of these algorithms have created in which they have encased both consumers citizens and producers Vel capitalists from whom they extract 30 40% of profits so every time you buy something of them you it's it's a little bit like calling Uber driver a capitalist yeah I mean he's a capitalist in the sense that he owns his car he's got a bit of capital and he's an Entrepreneur right but he's not

really he's a Vel to Uber similarly with the V similarly to anyone who sells anything on Amazon or similar device you know Walmart the huge Supermarket Network in the United States has shifted to the cloud now there is Walmart net which is um making more money than the physical stores so the you know we used to say that Financial capital and financialization and globalization was all about money You know going from one part of the earth to the other at Touch of a button without any country any government any regulator to do anything about that

well now this is the case with rents extracted about 35% of rents from around the world being of of income from other were being extracted by these Cloud capitalists and of course even if you look wherever whether you're looking at the rural areas of Indonesia or the New York Stock Exchange now the New York St Stock Exchange essentially is being controlled by three companies Black Rock state state and Vango and more than that 80 % of the value of uh the New York Stock Exchange is the are these CL seven Cloud Capital firms like Google

the magnen 7 if you take out of the New York Stock Stock Exchange these seven Cloud list companies then the the rest is in a state of huge crisis it's it's really not not accumulating any Capital so so you have this amazing development And therefore you have the clash between the the American and the Chinese Cloud Capital Europe is completely absent the United Kingdom is completely absent they you know we simply Play No role in that that explains to a very large extent why you know the Americans say jump and we say how high when

it comes to you know um funing the the Flames of war in Ukraine and the war in Ukraine is simply a way of maximizing the last rents of the fossil fuel industry in the United States uh while at the same time from the P perspective of Putin is his way of having a never-ending war that keeps him in power and in control of the Kremlin so the people of Russia the people of Ukraine the people of O of the United States of the United Kingdom of the European Union we have you know we have periodic

elections but we elect people who have firstly have no idea of what's going on and secondly uh they they really cannot regulate So going back to my disappointing answer answer to your pertinent question Jeremy no we cannot control this is why we need an international you know Uprising this is why we leftists had even though we have failed in every Regard in the last 100 years um we had the right idea that internationalism activism at a global level you know uh becoming you know having a strategy not just for our neighborhood not just for Our

city not just for our country but for how to counter the manner in which Cloud capital and the fossil fuel industry are combining forces essentially to blow up the world do you think that cloud capital is being fused with the arms trade as Cloud capital is necessary to train Ai and AI is becoming Central to weapons and warfare well you can see in Ukraine now that this is a war between autonomous systems to a very large extent I mean You have first world war on the ground you know trench warfare you know people just lobbing

um uh missiles at one another just killing each other but not moving at all right so you've got first world war on the ground and you've got 21st century AI driven machines in the air it's the worst of all of all worlds of today's world and of the first world war the Great War era uh now you know what what I find fascinating is that you know if you I've Have talked quite a few of the technologists in Silicon Valley and some of them in China you know the people who actually designed the AI who

code it you know they are all on the same page as we are they are scared to use a scientific term of what they are creating and they keep you know I don't know whether you noticed that but AI designers even some AI companies are warning governments that you know we are creating something which is really very Exciting but at the same time we fear for the future of of humankind uh and and and it's not so much that you know there will be in in the terms of the Terminator movies the moment of uh

um The Singularity where the machines are going to become conscious and decide that human beings are Surplus to requ environments and wipe us out that's not that's that's not around the corner it may happen in a century but that's not The point when you have a drone or actually um a a a swarm of small drones you know think of a swarm made up of a thousand drones these exist today they are available for sale you can buy a swarm of drones they can go into a building with face recognition AI and decide on their

own whom to take out and whom not to take out on the basis of instructions that were received they're not even controlled anymore remotely like the American drones are that kill People in Pakistan Afghanistan so on these These are complet you know you press the button they fly off you can't stop them they go into a building and they you know out of a thousand people they choose 20 to kill now this happens today do I care that they are not truly intelligent I don't so if you combine the the huge Stakes for the cloud

capitalist the fossil fuel industry the power of the AI that is being developed and the powerlessness of Our elected politicians even to know what on Earth is happening this combination is a clear and pleasant danger for Humanity uh let alone the fact that the same algorithms poison our democracies by poisoning the conversation between citizens so that we can't even have a proper discussion amongst ourselves about the climate catastrophe so from wherever you touch you you look at it you know we are being Quick marched to extinction by our own artifact so Mary shell was extremely

pressive you know we've created a beast that is beyond our control not because the problem is not the technology the problem is who owns the stuff who owns the Technologies which is the old Marxist critique of capitalism I would suggest it's it's about ownership but it's it's not only ownership it it's also about transcending these traps that we often See that we've talked about before yanis in Game Theory the traps of arms races of first mover Advantage um of tragedy of the commons they're difficult to escape from and they can account from a large for

a large proportion of the crisis that we're seeing at the civilizational level if you go and talk to most politicians as you were talking about the the AI technologists the rationalization will always be yeah we we're scared then This is terrible but if we don't do it China are going to do it and then you're going to speak to China China will say the same thing and the same argument with fossil fuel or over fishing in the oceans the idea is if we don't do it someone else will do it because we don't yet have

the global cooperation mechanisms to escape those traps and enforce decisions which would be in the benefit of the majority um look this is all good and proper and you're right but I do believe that it all boils down to ownership because if those AI programs were owned by communities by the deos it wouldn't get to the point of the prisoners dilemma because you know you to compare Uber with with um you know a Cooperative of taxi drivers using an algorithm in order to regulate the work and to help us you know use them in a

way which is um efficient from the perspective of the user of the customer Of that Cooperative of taxi drivers okay they wouldn't have any reason to create an algorithm which is predatory like the Uber algorithm is predatory towards the users data towards the drivers towards the you know other you know people in tax drivers in another country so it's who owns the algorithms that determines whether in the end the AI scientists or coders are being forced to write AI uh programs which are predatory you know the if you work for Um open AI which now

has Microsoft behind it right uh even if you are a communist right your job EV on writing a piece of AI which is predatory that's because not because of who you are and that you may you have then you have a choice between quitting or doing as Microsoft says so ownership is everything in the end that's why democratically controlled cooperatives using the highest of Technology are the ones that will create The international institutions that do away with war it it will not be the international institutions that will then create the circumstances of peace and defund

the conglomerates Jeremy your thought very interesting concept there there's been a as you probably know a argument within the London taxi industry for about 20 years now in that the black cab drivers were highly knowledge ible they have to Know every street in London highly experienced and um doing pretty well and then came along two things one is um Google Maps which can direct anybody anywhere at the drop of a hat which so you don't actually need to know anything you just follow a little screen in front of you and tell you where to drive

and secondly the um Uber app which means that anybody can get a cab from anywhere uh within two or three minutes at the most And whereas we you get an old black cab you'd stand by the road and wait for one to come by and you might have a very long wait um and so to begin with the London cabbies then set up a huge campaign against Uber to try and get rid of uber out of the city um where whereas in reality what my view they should have been doing was spending a great deal

of energy and developing their own technology as well which laterally they've started to do which is is run by The taxi drivers themselves um and uh that way you can sort of autonomization of the algorithms is um is the key to it all and these the algorithmic power around the world is absolutely enormous I mean you look at your phone you look at your computer what news pops up in front of you uh I mean I'm getting quite annoyed with this particular computer I'm looking at at the moment every time I turn it on it

brings up articles from The Daily Express I've no idea why except I suspect that at some point probably a year ago I was interested in an article in the Daily Express and the algorithm was decided that I am the archetypal Daily Express reader so I get bombarded with stuff from The Daily Express day in day out now that that is an incredibly powerful app that can direct me into a certain direction and the political power of that is huge and the power of that to Um promote debate is also very significant now back to the

Daily Express um analogy I turn on my computer and I'm routinely told that um Putin is mad that Putin is about to die from cancer that Putin is about to be overthrown by a coup that half the Russian forces have already defected and gone away but all it needs is a few more weapons and a few more troops and a few more support for Ukraine and Ukraine is going to defeat Russia in this War I me the the ghastly horror is that um all countries around the world are involved to some extent Western Europe and

Russia obviously and China to the most in pouring money and weapons into Ukraine and several hundred thousand people have already died um I'm I have no sympathy whatsoever of Russia's invasion of Ukraine I have every sympathy for all those that have died be they Russians or ukrainians in this and So it is the power of algorithms to decide how we think that is a really really serious one politically I'm writing a book at the moment on um partly on my experience as leader of the opposition but also other issues as well and the most interesting

and the hardest part to write is the one on the media for the future because the power of the media to influence opinion and the power of social media to um reduce people's concentration spans to um a Couple of hundred characters at the most is huge and it means getting more complicated arguments across is much more difficult and so I I I don't have have a simple answer to this but I do know that um the left needs to be developing its own autonomous form of media information because if we rely on Facebook on Amazon

and Google YouTube etc etc to disseminate our knowledge quite often it happens they do it we put lots of Interesting stuff up and but we all do it and all use it but and this is the big but when it becomes inconvenient for those in enormous power for us to have that ability to communicate with each other they can simply shut it down as was done in India as has been done in China as has been done in Russia as has been done on a city basis and local basis all over Western Europe and and

the USA at various times we need um the technical Knowledgeable ability to be able to put up some kind of alternative yeah I mean from my perspective and I just going to push back a little bit on on what you said before Janis of course ownership is Central but scale is also Central and we need shifts of ownership but we need them at an international scale and we need a new international architecture to facilitate cooperation and forms of Decision making that can enable a shift of ownership at scale because if you have Europe or you

have the us or you have one region of the world doing exactly as you say and what we'd like to see um using resources in a much more efficient rational way taking ownership of algorithms that's beautiful but if another part of the world decides to say no we're going to weaponize all of this technology they will have the power in Short order to wipe out the more Progressive example um that's why I think the problem when you really get to the heart of it it's not just about ownership it's about a new international architecture which

facilitates cooperation I I think of the the book by Daniel ellsburg the Doomsday Machine where he talks about just how close we've come as a civilization to obliterating ourselves with nuclear weapons a number of times Not simply through malicious intent but through a series of accidents which led to weapons nuclear weapons almost being launched which could have triggered um a nuclear winter and pretty much the end of of of humanity now nuclear weapons have been around for a blink of an eye um given human history and since then the Technologies and the means for self-destruction

have proliferated and they're proliferating Rapidly with AI so yes we have to shift ownership but unless we have a way of cooperating and it's really getting back to what you said at the start Jeremy you know peace is an active State it's not simply the absence of conflict we need structures and a culture that can really facilitate and deliver that peace because we're for the first time in human history it's literally a matter of survival for the species and our civilization you know Conflict in the past didn't wipe out everything so we need to update

our social Technologies to to meet the challenges that our physical Technologies are are bringing that's my position is is there something that you think is wrong there or you disagree with or is it just a matter of language you have to add to that education and information uh we have a um the greatest access to information and knowledge there has ever been in human history and Yet we have people directed down rabbit holes by algorithms to take them away from access to that knowledge I mean this thing here mobile phone normal normal mobile phone I

can access all the knowledge of any library in the world the drop of um a few buttons that's incredible power do people access that no do they research detailed into history of subjects no um they're often taken off in the direction of um illusions of celebrity of money of Wealth and all and and all the rest of it so we actually have a deined and depoliticized generation that's being encouraged by these media systems and so surely the political issue is how you um inform and mobilize people in an age when uh you're in competition with

everything else digitally I I don't I'm not sure what the simple answer to this is but the reality of um War the reality of um insecurity economic insecurity is a huge One and um I should imagine the figures are roughly the same across Europe in the case of the UK workingclass living standards have fallen by around 20% over the past 15 years and continue to fall even where there are successful wage claims they're no more than the rate of inflation and so we're on a redistribution a massive postco post 2008 redistribution of wealth and with

it the power in the direction of the very biggest Corporations which um yanis so effectively described right I want to push back on Raul's hypothesis which I consider to be very West uh is and what hypothesis this what you said before that if we don't develop these lethal weapons and these lethal techniques and so on somebody else may and then we will be caught up in a global prisons dilemma I disagree and let me tell you why I disagree because we assume here in the west that the rest Of the world is as imperialistic and

um um misanthropic as uh Europe and the United States that's not true that is not true I mean if you look at China the history of China even when was very brutal Empire extremely authoritarian I'm talking about you know centuries ago uh they chose they chose to cut off their relationship with the rest of the world they didn't want to be imperialist if you look uh the Ottoman Empire under which my people the Greek people Suffered we were slaves under the the Ottoman Empire and yet the otoman empire was a paragon of humanity compared to

anything Europe has ever produced ask the Jews uh when the Jews were expelled from from by the the Catholics in Spain they found refuge in Thessaloniki in uh Istanbul right and they lived or in in Palestine under the Ottoman Empire the Jews were never never never faced a pogm ever right so the rest of the of the world is not as predatory as the West is So so the problem for me you know is the fact that the West has um a military industrial complex which is essential to the business model of Western capitalism and

in in China it's not true China does not need its industrial military complex in order to maintain its growth it doesn't it's actually it actually harms it you know president X would love to do away with military expenditure you know the if you look look at the thousands of miles of super fast magnetic trains that They are producing and the United States can't even have a a 19th century train going from Washington DC to to New York right uh they rely the Americans rely on the on building lethal weapons for their growth model the same

thing is happening with the European Union that pathetic idiot uh who is supposedly the head of the the chairman of the Union Council Mr sh Michelle the other day and I you know I'm beyond uh boura politeness and manage these days I called Him a stupid idiot and I mean it because he had the audacity to come up with a program for um a plan uh for Europe's uh technological and economic advancement through creating a military industrial complex in Europe you won't find that in India you will not find that in Indonesia you will not

find this in China the they have all sorts of um authoritarian um Tendencies and I have no doubt that if I lived in China I Would probably be in prison now uh and mod is a fascist in India but it is only the West that relies on the mentality which in your estimation okay maybe I'm I'm I'm being unfair to you but you know this prisoners dilemma requires people who think in the terms of the logic of prisoners dilemma and it is only the West that thinks that in that way you know the the global

South doesn't this is why the bricks are an interesting experiment I do I'm not enthusiastic About the bricks um I think that the left has made a very big mistake to to think of it as an alternative Soviet Union no but it is an interesting experience because exper exper because none of those people South Africa India and so on um they are not interested in building up a military industrial complex as part of their capital accumulation model I I hear that Janis I I see it Differently I see that through the history of humanity the

more familiar principle of conflict over resources based on on ethnic tribal National regional identities that proceeds the sorts of cultur that you're talking about that arose in the west and led to the worst forms of imperialism that that we've ever seen um and as we look ahead given the many ecological crises That are coming our way and already we we're living through there are going to be conflicts over resources it's going to be harder to get access to fresh water food um there's going to be a Scramble for land now unless you find ways of

dealing with those problems cooperatively building this active piece culturally and in terms of the international architecture for decision making you are going to have conflict and as soon as there's conflict you get Arms races and that's where all the resources end up going even if the people I disagree with you I really deeply disagree with you the reason why we have this conflict and you know climate catastrophe is because of European and American imperialism you know the rest of the world have shown uh over the last 2,000 years a remarkable capacity to cooperate whether we

are talking about Africa you're projecting our European nastiness Onto other people um you know if you look at Northern Africa if you look at Southern Africa Whenever there were conflicts over resources water whatever in the Sahara and so on they found remarkably harmonious ways of dealing with them even under the Ottoman Empire in China in India it was only when the Europeans the you know the East India Company and you know Exon Mobile when they meddled they create these uh um these conflicts which then um European And American Elites blame on the backwardness of the

brown people I will not participate in this I mean I think there's many many examples of Empire and imperialism across the world not just in Europe and there's nothing biologically different about Europeans that's the whole point what happened in Europe was a kind of Confluence of memes it was not genetic Evolution but mimetic evolution from J from gang ishan to to today's uh Asia right um is simply to mistake the the manner in which you know Malaysia China South Korea even though though they have huge differences they seem perfectly capable of uh cooperating with one

another in the way you want the only impediment to cooperation is American and European imperialism but wasn't the imperialism fast growing after the industrial Revolutions of mainly Europe in that they developed um steel and steam as the fundamental breakthrough in Technology and rapidly ran out of enough resources domestically to feed their Industries hence the need for importing vast amounts of raw materials from around the world and so uh the whole of European industry basically relies on the importation of raw materials from the rest of the world hence the need for military strength in order to

be able to ensure that supplies going to the um industrial needs and so the there's the other Dimens this is this is of course correct JY yeah of course this is this is correct but the is a second dimension to imperialism which is even more powerful and more misanthropic and destructive it's not so much that you know Britain run out of coal you know the Industrial Revolution did not run out of coal what the Industrial Revolution run out of capitalism run out of was it run out of markets because the class struggle the class structure

of British Capitalism deprived the British working class the spending power which was necessary to absorb all the products of British industry so then the Royal Navy had to go out there and Conquer lands not so much for their primary resources but in order to create markets for the cotton that was being cotton Goods that were produced in Manchester so initially it was initially it was extractive going you know conquering Latin America to get Its gold conquering other places to get their cotton and their cocoa and their coffee beans and all that but primarily the reason

why capitalism is like a shark that needs to keep moving otherwise it dies is because it cannot create domestically enough demand for the products of the capitalist Machinery so it needs to keep spreading like a virus to other parts of the world to create markets now if you look at you know people celebrate people right Wingers um establishment figur celebrate the lifting of so many billions of people out of poverty well because of globalization globalized capitalis well that's true but it 95% of them were Chinese and the Chinese managed to rise them to to to

to rise above poverty and to create all this wealth on the basis of a model which was not imperi which was not H it was not it was it didn't need to conquer it didn't they didn't need to to kill any prime Minister anywhere in the world or to you roll tanks in any country around the world in order to create markets for themselves and you know to assume that they would do the same thing as the Americans or the British would um I think I think this is simply projecting onto them uh the the

the the the aspects of European and American cap capitalism and imperialism which um are responsible for the for the fact that now we're a species facing extinction the means that Arose in Europe the culture that arose in Europe that can arise anywhere and it only has to arise once in one place with sufficient power to the to then begin forcing other people to play the prisoners dilemma game people can get the game you're falling into the Trap of the of the Washington consensus Now by by saying that you see the Chinese are developing so the

theid this hypothesis says that they we are going to have a Problem with them and if we do not develop nuclear weapons and if we are not predatory they will be and we will all become China men yeah you're falling into that trap don't no I I what I'm doing is I'm trying to recognize the power of that logic I I think it's too easy to just deny the logic I think the logic is powerful and we have to transend the my conclusion my conclusion is very different Janice I have a very I arrive At

a very different conclusion to the waston consensus and why is it different to that of Joe Biden today because what Joe Biden is arguing today for is a new World Trade Organization a new United Nations which you know is going to be more fair and will not allow the Chinese to to you know to be to to have surpluses what is your something ganice that we've never had before and I think it takes two forms it takes a form of a Cultural Enlightenment and an International System which is designed for peace and cooperation because precisely

precisely because let me finish Point precisely because we are cognizant of the fact that for the first time in history we cannot repeat the patterns of the past in terms of conflict because if we do we wipe ourselves out that is the motivation to put together an international Architecture actually you have lowlevel War is going on forever the Ukraine war I hope it finished tomorrow but it won't that could go on forever and uh that then is fed by an arms industry and at the same time all the propaganda that we're all receiving all the

time is that some or other China is our new competitor on everything and I hear some completely deranged members of parliament getting up in the House of Commons telling us we've got to stand up To China and we've got to um spend far more on defense so we can deal with a Chinese threat I mean they're completely deranged um and I remember the Chinese Ambassador said to me some years ago he said uh Jeremy why have you got an aircraft carrier um patrolling up and down our coast and I said well two things really first

of all I haven't got an aircraft carry of any sort and I don't think it should be there anyway and secondly I think it's Matt and he Said could you let the British govern government know that for your two aircraft carriers we've got a 100 I mean the the idea is just crazy but Janis is um is right about the the issue of um building up this arms race idea presumably is meant to either throw China into a different direction or to um say well actually we're prepared to go to war with China don't think

anybody is really prepared to go to war with China because they know what the Consequence of that would be but also does China actually want to go to war with anybody absolutely not yeah they are a trading Nation exactly they just want to sell stuff yeah right and the idea that they are building up their military and they would want do they would want that the threat uh I mean I was in Australia recently with with you know where the big issue of course is this ridiculous OS deal between the United Kingdom the United States

and Australia uh where the Australians are paying 300 um what is it360 billion dollar um for submarines that are completely utterly useless and the there are another are is that that the Chinese uh will um interrupt the trade routes around the South China seas and the question is why would why on Earth would they do that they want to use those trade routs to sell their wees and they're very good at producing stuff the Australian econom model and the Australian economic model depends on trade with China anyway indeed so the Australians are committing suicide there's

no doubt of that but that's because you know this is what this is the what what they've been told to do by Washington and they are just proceeding to to do it they did it in galipoli under Winston Church they're now doing it under Joe Biden and they will do it under Donald Trump tomorrow because they have become vessels uh and the United Kingdom by the way is not far off under the pretense of the special relationship but going back to look there is no doubt that we need to reenergize the United Nations if you

go into the United Nations and I was there in November and I was very struck by this um I talked to representatives of different countries in the United Nations from Africa from Asia uh very different countries politically Ideologically you know as as as I've said before I consider Modi the prime minister of India to be a fascist um who is um creating uh um ra racial tensions in order to exploit it in order to become more authoritarian but nevertheless even when you speak to Indian diplomats representing that government or to the Chinese or to Nigerians

or to South Africans or to people from from South America they love what you are saying R They want cooperation they do do not want conflict but you have a hardcore of European and American Canadian and Australian representatives there who are doing their atmost to ensure that there is never any International cooperation and that there is the was you know the five eyes when the five eyes mean the the five intelligence Services of the anglosphere that is the there's the military representation of this there's a multinational conglomerate Representation of this and they will do everything

to ensure that the United Nations doesn't operate so we don't need another organization we have the United Nations we simply need as British as Canadians as Australians as Europeans to revolt against our governments take over and make the United Nations work because the rest of the world are ready for it I mean that all sounds very good I'm I'm very much behind that plan um I my only my only doubt yianis Is part of the reading of of the global situation now it seems quite short term in that we've had a global superpower in the

United States for getting close to a century and that changes the incentives for every other country that changes the way people think about peace and of course it's more appealing to think about cooperation when you are not the superpower um um and as we enter a Multi-polar world the Dynamics change I want in every country populations to take ownership democratically of resources and of decision making but I do see that we need a sort of new kind of international cooperation which we haven't seen before which is deeper and more effective and and more binding um

given the scale of Technologies now I know we're running out of time and this is such a big important topic um so I don't want to kind of hog it anymore but I just want to say Jeremy do you have any final words before before I know have to leave we need better information we need better education we need the language of peace to return we need to recognize that um global inequality and environmental disaster are not going to be dealt with by this rapid increase in arms expenditure and the greed of the biggest Global

Corporation so it is about um Global movements for peace and for Justice that are absolutely crucial and essential to everything that we do and re-energizing the UN is part of that re-energizing that idea of cooperation is a very important part of that and remember politics can change very quickly uh Trump May well win in the USA all his nonsensical rhetoric is not going to put food on the table is not going to give Health Care to the very poorest in the USA and those and those popular movements can turn very quickly Into something actually quite

Progressive which is demanding social justice for people well very briefly I hope that um the war in Gaza the massacre is not even a war the the the pictures of the mimed children somehow get into the conscience of people who are not part of our movement who are not left Wingers and who realize that their own regimes their own political parties are dragging them Towards uh misanthropic equilibrium uh that they do not want to have any part of and demand that their government in Britain in France in Germany we exit this cabal of NATO warmongering

industrial complex driven um precursors of just you know a generalized conflict from which um we won't even be able to extract a proper discussion about Whether we want Socialism or whether want democracy or whether we want social democracy you know the things that people are concerned about are not even on the agenda of the people who are are running the show and those people independently of whether they agree with us or not about socialism about this that and the other they have to take control of their governments just take back control of their governments you

know that slogan of the brexiteers um Was so successful because you know get back control is what what the demos needs so that democracy can function again of course it was usurped by people like farage and um and um Boris Johnson we need to get back control of getting back control one last thought if I may yanice and R uh I've been on all these demonstration over Gaza for the past six months I've been to a very large number of public Meetings and so on and what I've noticed is a difference in that the people

coming are from a very broad background of life and walks of life and actually quite a wide variety of political views there is a growing radical movement irrespective of political parties it's not a majority but it's a significant one who want to see things differently are unbelievably shocked by the inhumanity of what's happening in Gaza and um likewise in Ukraine and in the Horrors of all the wars that are going on I think there are some Grounds for Hope well my final word is just to take the opportunity to say Jeremy thank you for just

a lifetime of of fighting for for peace against Injustice for showing so much courage as leader of the labor party you remain a symbol of Hope and inspiration for so many including myself thank you for all you do and as long as there are people like you then there is genuine hope and There is an alternative and um yeah it's an honor to speak with you today here here be with you thank you if you enjoyed this podcast please like And subscribe to our Channel