1 00:00:00,160 --> 00:00:02,581 It's really great to be joined today by Peter Joseph, 2 00:00:02,690 --> 00:00:04,632 the founder of The Zeitgeist Movement 3 00:00:04,740 --> 00:00:06,952 and author of the new book which I have here 4 00:00:08,058 --> 00:00:10,080 'The New Human Rights Movement.' 5 00:00:10,712 --> 00:00:12,160 Peter, it's so great to talk to you. 6 00:00:12,330 --> 00:00:15,541 I really enjoyed going through most of the book 7 00:00:15,658 --> 00:00:17,687 over the last week or 10 days or so, 8 00:00:17,920 --> 00:00:20,029 and I think to get our audience into 9 00:00:20,181 --> 00:00:22,520 what you're tackling in this particular book, 10 00:00:22,647 --> 00:00:25,527 I'm sort of left with the idea of 11 00:00:26,516 --> 00:00:29,090 looking at individual problems 12 00:00:29,367 --> 00:00:31,970 from a structuralist perspective 13 00:00:32,087 --> 00:00:34,829 or a broader perspective than we otherwise might. 14 00:00:35,229 --> 00:00:38,930 Is that a good way to assess the general idea of this book? 15 00:00:39,840 --> 00:00:42,000 Yes, that's a pretty good encapsulation. 16 00:00:42,378 --> 00:00:44,938 And when you started writing this book, 17 00:00:46,101 --> 00:00:47,963 tell me how you approached the problem. 18 00:00:48,072 --> 00:00:52,320 Was it that, in your time researching individual topics, 19 00:00:52,443 --> 00:00:55,680 you decided hey, there's a broader issue or a broader perspective 20 00:00:55,803 --> 00:00:58,749 we can look at? Did it come in the opposite direction? 21 00:00:58,858 --> 00:01:01,636 Did you enter with one particular issue, like for example 22 00:01:01,781 --> 00:01:04,290 poverty or hunger, both of which you address in the book? 23 00:01:06,429 --> 00:01:09,127 I would say the motivation to approach it this way is 24 00:01:09,280 --> 00:01:13,221 taking a good hard look at what we've done as activists throughout time. 25 00:01:13,665 --> 00:01:15,781 The activist community tends to be 26 00:01:16,276 --> 00:01:18,225 far more localized in their views, 27 00:01:18,330 --> 00:01:21,330 they separate themselves into different schools so to speak, 28 00:01:21,440 --> 00:01:24,327 you have the ecological activists, the social activists and so on. 29 00:01:24,938 --> 00:01:27,534 And after spending a lot of years as an activist myself 30 00:01:27,643 --> 00:01:29,156 looking at the world's problems, 31 00:01:29,410 --> 00:01:33,476 I realized that there was a strong lapse of any kind of social psychology, 32 00:01:33,592 --> 00:01:35,680 anything that related to sociology itself, 33 00:01:36,290 --> 00:01:39,796 denying effectively the long-standing social science, 34 00:01:40,145 --> 00:01:42,836 the biological science, the psychological science, 35 00:01:42,940 --> 00:01:45,367 the sociological science, the ecological influences 36 00:01:45,480 --> 00:01:48,269 and that synergy that really defines us as human beings 37 00:01:48,378 --> 00:01:50,000 and ultimately defines the state of the world. 38 00:01:50,392 --> 00:01:52,901 So I'm trying to take a social science perspective with this book, 39 00:01:53,018 --> 00:01:54,450 and I think if people understand it - 40 00:01:54,720 --> 00:01:56,640 and that is why its called 'The New Human Rights Movement.' 41 00:01:56,750 --> 00:01:58,014 Obviously this subject could, 42 00:01:58,400 --> 00:02:00,465 given the context of structuralism as I call it, 43 00:02:00,574 --> 00:02:02,210 you could apply it to a lot of different things, 44 00:02:02,363 --> 00:02:05,607 but I wanted to hone in on activism for the 21st century. 45 00:02:05,910 --> 00:02:08,436 So that's the motivation, to get people on board with more of a 46 00:02:08,661 --> 00:02:11,425 social psychology perspective of what needs to happen, 47 00:02:11,690 --> 00:02:14,312 to understand yourself and the predicament of the world 48 00:02:14,420 --> 00:02:15,425 and how to change it. 49 00:02:15,905 --> 00:02:17,716 Maybe to give our audience an example 50 00:02:18,043 --> 00:02:19,912 of one issue that you tackle in the book 51 00:02:20,036 --> 00:02:22,676 we could talk a little bit about poverty, and 52 00:02:23,061 --> 00:02:25,992 I think we all can probably imagine 53 00:02:26,370 --> 00:02:29,716 the people we know, who approach poverty from you know: 54 00:02:29,825 --> 00:02:31,820 "This is sort of the way things are, 55 00:02:32,094 --> 00:02:35,876 despite our system, poverty is an inevitability. 56 00:02:35,980 --> 00:02:38,669 It's always there, it's always going to be there." 57 00:02:39,003 --> 00:02:41,054 And you take a different approach 58 00:02:41,160 --> 00:02:45,018 which is: poverty is an optional and also direct result 59 00:02:45,120 --> 00:02:47,323 of the systems that we've chosen. 60 00:02:47,440 --> 00:02:50,261 So, can we start with the conversation around poverty 61 00:02:50,370 --> 00:02:51,483 and how you approach it? 62 00:02:52,770 --> 00:02:54,618 Yeah, it's disheartening to see 63 00:02:54,720 --> 00:02:56,923 how passive people have become about 64 00:02:57,127 --> 00:03:00,065 both domestic and international poverty. 65 00:03:00,620 --> 00:03:04,705 Poverty is, in the words of Gandhi, "the worst form of violence." 66 00:03:04,810 --> 00:03:07,869 Systemically speaking, it leads to so many different 67 00:03:08,821 --> 00:03:11,803 detrimental outcomes, whether you're dealing with mental health, 68 00:03:11,960 --> 00:03:14,647 whether you're dealing with interpersonal relationships, 69 00:03:15,010 --> 00:03:16,560 whether you're dealing with physical health. 70 00:03:17,192 --> 00:03:22,589 And if you look closely poverty and its encapsulating system, 71 00:03:23,060 --> 00:03:26,443 overarching system reference which you call socioeconomic inequality 72 00:03:26,550 --> 00:03:28,269 (which is what I address throughout the book a lot), 73 00:03:28,698 --> 00:03:31,985 poverty is an externality of our system, 74 00:03:32,152 --> 00:03:34,232 an externality of market capitalism, 75 00:03:34,349 --> 00:03:36,152 it's an externality of the economy. 76 00:03:38,625 --> 00:03:40,500 Within that particular context, 77 00:03:40,740 --> 00:03:42,836 it's a great starting point because I think everyone 78 00:03:42,945 --> 00:03:45,403 has experienced poverty on some basic level, whether 79 00:03:45,720 --> 00:03:49,134 vicariously, watching the Global South 80 00:03:49,258 --> 00:03:52,836 and the complete destitution that still exists there today 81 00:03:52,938 --> 00:03:55,221 as an issue of post-colonialism which is 82 00:03:55,620 --> 00:03:57,054 something to point out as well. I mean, 83 00:03:57,214 --> 00:03:59,054 I don't want to get too spirally here 84 00:03:59,160 --> 00:04:02,101 but I think it's important to point out that people have this great mythology 85 00:04:02,370 --> 00:04:04,232 about where poverty came from and people say 86 00:04:04,349 --> 00:04:07,381 "Well, we've just left people behind in capitalism" and so on. 87 00:04:07,716 --> 00:04:11,367 The people in the Global South, in Africa, Latin America, Asia and so on that 88 00:04:11,490 --> 00:04:13,447 are still in destitute third world poverty, 89 00:04:13,556 --> 00:04:15,400 are not there because they've been left behind, 90 00:04:15,512 --> 00:04:18,260 they're there because over the course of time they've effectively been robbed. 91 00:04:18,647 --> 00:04:21,156 And that's something that isn't given enough gravity of course 92 00:04:21,883 --> 00:04:24,280 in the intellectual circles as to why these things exist, 93 00:04:24,400 --> 00:04:26,829 which makes you kind of upset when you hear people talk about 94 00:04:26,930 --> 00:04:29,360 how we've advanced poverty on this planet without 95 00:04:29,738 --> 00:04:32,901 talking about the fact that the reason poverty exists 96 00:04:33,110 --> 00:04:35,498 is because of the social system's incentives 97 00:04:35,716 --> 00:04:37,760 at the same time, over the long term. 98 00:04:38,250 --> 00:04:40,894 But to be more specific to your question, poverty is both 99 00:04:42,087 --> 00:04:44,989 a cause and an effect in terms of epidemiology. 100 00:04:45,432 --> 00:04:48,450 In social science research, people refer to poverty as 101 00:04:48,574 --> 00:04:50,123 a "root" of something, for example, 102 00:04:50,450 --> 00:04:52,283 families in poverty are known to 103 00:04:52,407 --> 00:04:54,625 create children that have lower IQs. 104 00:04:54,770 --> 00:04:56,989 The brain function doesn't develop as well. 105 00:04:57,090 --> 00:05:00,000 There's reductions in the amygdala and the hippocampus. 106 00:05:00,310 --> 00:05:02,320 Literally, you're creating brain damage 107 00:05:02,530 --> 00:05:06,436 through the synergy of poverty and deprivation, that's just one example. 108 00:05:07,090 --> 00:05:09,941 But it's also known as an effect too. 109 00:05:10,240 --> 00:05:11,818 That's why it's addressed in the book as such. 110 00:05:11,920 --> 00:05:16,676 I refer to it as a negative externality. For those familiar with economics, 111 00:05:16,916 --> 00:05:18,763 an externality is something that happens 112 00:05:19,025 --> 00:05:21,970 outside of the purview, the reference point 113 00:05:22,340 --> 00:05:24,552 of what economics recognizes. 114 00:05:24,945 --> 00:05:29,105 So pollution is a negative externality for example, as is poverty. 115 00:05:29,243 --> 00:05:31,272 And that's a pretty radical thing for me to say because 116 00:05:31,381 --> 00:05:34,000 as you've pointed out, most people have not perceived it that way. 117 00:05:34,327 --> 00:05:36,523 But when you look at the amount of wealth on this planet, 118 00:05:36,727 --> 00:05:39,083 in material terms - I'm not just talking about money - 119 00:05:39,200 --> 00:05:41,738 but even if you look at the money, it's pretty staggering, you know. 120 00:05:42,065 --> 00:05:44,749 We all know about the inequality statistics, I won't go into that. 121 00:05:45,207 --> 00:05:47,840 Poverty could easily be resolved both through financial means 122 00:05:48,036 --> 00:05:51,301 and through efficient use of resources with modern methods. 123 00:05:51,585 --> 00:05:52,887 But we don't do it 124 00:05:53,243 --> 00:05:56,160 because of the way the economic structure is organized, 125 00:05:56,276 --> 00:05:59,301 its incentives, its procedural dynamics you could say. 126 00:05:59,690 --> 00:06:02,094 And that is, of course, a big subject in the book, 127 00:06:02,340 --> 00:06:05,556 and I really hope people will begin to understand moreso that 128 00:06:05,660 --> 00:06:07,483 poverty is really just a form of violence 129 00:06:07,620 --> 00:06:10,094 coming down from our social system, doesn't need to exist 130 00:06:10,200 --> 00:06:11,345 and we should work to change it. 131 00:06:11,883 --> 00:06:15,265 And Peter, some people will hear what we've talked about so far 132 00:06:15,374 --> 00:06:18,843 and they'll say, listen, you're criticizing the capitalist system, 133 00:06:19,210 --> 00:06:22,712 and you know, some people are poor in capitalism 134 00:06:22,900 --> 00:06:27,476 but if you're alluding to communism, EVERYbody's poor in communism. 135 00:06:27,840 --> 00:06:29,381 How does someone like you, 136 00:06:29,660 --> 00:06:33,032 who has such a nuanced and detailed knowledge of these issues, 137 00:06:33,447 --> 00:06:36,509 start to break through those sort of 138 00:06:36,640 --> 00:06:39,127 knee-jerk reactions from some 139 00:06:40,010 --> 00:06:43,585 who would no doubt have that reaction when hearing what you've outlined so far? 140 00:06:43,825 --> 00:06:46,887 What's the best path in to a productive conversation 141 00:06:47,003 --> 00:06:48,465 with someone who reacts that way? 142 00:06:49,360 --> 00:06:53,600 I think the first step is to start to expose the mythology the Western world 143 00:06:54,750 --> 00:06:58,261 has ascribed to when it comes to historical communism. 144 00:06:58,945 --> 00:07:01,934 Historical communism as practiced in the Soviet Union 145 00:07:02,610 --> 00:07:04,225 was a particular niche, 146 00:07:04,509 --> 00:07:08,720 a particular kind of central planning, a particular kind of authoritarianism. 147 00:07:09,250 --> 00:07:11,643 And when people say this, they automatically 148 00:07:11,774 --> 00:07:15,500 create a false duality between capitalism and then this other supposed 149 00:07:16,509 --> 00:07:19,869 ideal of what communism is or was or was supposed to be. 150 00:07:20,116 --> 00:07:22,821 And what it is or was or was supposed to be in terms of 151 00:07:22,989 --> 00:07:25,090 communism or socialism or Marxism - 152 00:07:25,200 --> 00:07:27,258 any of those terms that people want to throw out - 153 00:07:28,189 --> 00:07:30,700 it's extremely counterproductive because there's very little 154 00:07:30,894 --> 00:07:34,392 critical analysis or historical understanding of what actually happened 155 00:07:34,590 --> 00:07:37,236 with those social systems or social approaches, 156 00:07:37,629 --> 00:07:39,243 not to mention the grand ambiguity. 157 00:07:39,461 --> 00:07:42,458 To even talk about what socialism means today is to 158 00:07:42,560 --> 00:07:46,000 define it about ten dozen different ways, as I think you know. 159 00:07:46,661 --> 00:07:49,156 So, I step back from that and I try to take a 160 00:07:49,301 --> 00:07:52,254 train of thought perspective as opposed to a polarized one. 161 00:07:52,800 --> 00:07:54,829 Just because something isn't market capitalism 162 00:07:54,930 --> 00:07:56,887 doesn't necessarily mean it's communism, 163 00:07:57,000 --> 00:07:58,327 so you start from that position. 164 00:07:58,620 --> 00:08:00,727 And then you start to outline what it is in society 165 00:08:00,830 --> 00:08:03,149 that's actually created the advancement. 166 00:08:03,396 --> 00:08:05,578 And I wouldn't say things like economic growth 167 00:08:05,680 --> 00:08:08,261 because that's a contrivance of market capitalism, 168 00:08:08,407 --> 00:08:10,327 but what has actually improved people's lives? 169 00:08:10,567 --> 00:08:13,330 What are the mechanisms that have led to higher standards of living, 170 00:08:13,454 --> 00:08:15,330 to reduced child mortality, 171 00:08:16,458 --> 00:08:19,672 to the current alleviation of poverty that's been slowly, 172 00:08:19,780 --> 00:08:23,810 slowly getting a little bit better over the course of the past 60, 70 years? 173 00:08:24,400 --> 00:08:28,610 And the answer to that is the application of design efficiency and technology. 174 00:08:29,112 --> 00:08:31,432 And, as I get to the end of this book, 175 00:08:31,876 --> 00:08:36,458 I hone in on those specific points that have actually underscored 176 00:08:36,560 --> 00:08:39,076 the benefit of our economic efficiency: 177 00:08:39,420 --> 00:08:42,298 benefited of us, in our public health and so on. 178 00:08:42,650 --> 00:08:44,938 And I isolate those from the market, 179 00:08:45,338 --> 00:08:48,574 and I want to encourage people to develop a new system 180 00:08:48,916 --> 00:08:51,469 that harnesses those issues, harnesses 181 00:08:51,796 --> 00:08:54,727 the amazing efficiency we've achieved 182 00:08:54,836 --> 00:08:56,734 as human beings, as intelligent thinkers, 183 00:08:56,880 --> 00:08:59,774 as opposed to this archaic system that is lost 184 00:09:00,043 --> 00:09:02,152 in what's called the Malthusian period. 185 00:09:02,269 --> 00:09:06,974 It's lost in this Malthusian, Machiavellian highly scarcity-driven world. 186 00:09:07,265 --> 00:09:09,469 So I apologize, I've deviated a bit from your question. 187 00:09:09,607 --> 00:09:11,752 When people approach me with the communist duality, 188 00:09:11,869 --> 00:09:15,134 I pretty much just have to stop them and begin a long explanation that 189 00:09:15,338 --> 00:09:17,927 what they're referencing is a false duality to begin with, 190 00:09:18,100 --> 00:09:21,694 and that if you really want to get down to it, here's the train of thought. 191 00:09:21,840 --> 00:09:24,480 Here are the attributes that have defined our society and made it better. 192 00:09:24,676 --> 00:09:26,698 Why can't we simply amplify these attributes 193 00:09:26,807 --> 00:09:30,901 without any of these ideological stigmas and interference? 194 00:09:31,120 --> 00:09:34,058 And sadly enough, stigmas and labels and interference has been 195 00:09:34,300 --> 00:09:37,832 a great way to dismiss a lot of these ideas over time, 196 00:09:37,940 --> 00:09:40,210 so it's unfortunately a current that we have to 197 00:09:40,327 --> 00:09:43,061 walk against still in the 21st century. 198 00:09:43,527 --> 00:09:45,650 Let's pause there with Peter Joseph, 199 00:09:45,752 --> 00:09:48,429 founder of The Zeitgeist Movement, author of the new book 200 00:09:48,530 --> 00:09:49,883 'The New Human Rights Movement' 201 00:09:49,990 --> 00:09:53,578 and we'll pick it up in part two with the concept of scarcity 202 00:09:53,680 --> 00:09:55,992 which you've spoken about a lot and is interesting to me 203 00:09:56,110 --> 00:09:57,192 so we'll follow up there. 204 00:09:58,950 --> 00:10:02,145 We're continuing our conversation today with Peter Joseph, 205 00:10:02,298 --> 00:10:05,825 founder of The Zeitgeist Movement, also author of the new book 206 00:10:05,930 --> 00:10:07,592 'The New Human Rights Movement.' 207 00:10:07,860 --> 00:10:11,978 We started getting into, Peter, this concept of scarcity. 208 00:10:12,100 --> 00:10:17,883 And I want to talk about that in the context of market capitalism. 209 00:10:18,192 --> 00:10:22,000 In many more micro ways you point out in the book, 210 00:10:22,152 --> 00:10:25,000 for example with food production and hunger, 211 00:10:25,340 --> 00:10:30,450 that the concept of scarcity and lack of resources to meet the needs 212 00:10:30,843 --> 00:10:33,880 is essentially a contrived result 213 00:10:34,283 --> 00:10:36,938 of how we've decided to allocate resources. 214 00:10:37,040 --> 00:10:39,680 And you point out in great detail in the appendix to the book, 215 00:10:39,810 --> 00:10:42,189 how not only food production and hunger could be solved 216 00:10:42,298 --> 00:10:44,123 with current resources and technology, 217 00:10:44,414 --> 00:10:46,225 but so could clean water and energy. 218 00:10:46,487 --> 00:10:50,276 Let's maybe start and focus on food production and hunger. 219 00:10:50,516 --> 00:10:55,047 Would you call this a decision that has been made effectively 220 00:10:55,156 --> 00:10:58,676 by global society not to solve the problem of hunger? 221 00:11:00,392 --> 00:11:03,890 Well that would inch into a kind of a conspiratorial view 222 00:11:04,007 --> 00:11:06,378 which I don't subscribe to with any of this. 223 00:11:06,520 --> 00:11:10,218 What I think it is, it's a cultural unfolding that goes back 224 00:11:11,258 --> 00:11:16,130 hundreds of years, to before the late 18th century 225 00:11:16,240 --> 00:11:18,014 and the start of the Industrial Revolution, 226 00:11:18,120 --> 00:11:20,298 what some people call the Great Divergence. 227 00:11:21,498 --> 00:11:25,381 Scarcity has been with society in a very visceral way 228 00:11:25,512 --> 00:11:28,516 since the Neolithic Revolution 12,000 years ago when 229 00:11:28,836 --> 00:11:31,000 we emerged from hunter gatherer tribes that 230 00:11:31,200 --> 00:11:33,374 had a fairly abundant amount of resources 231 00:11:33,483 --> 00:11:35,614 and a completely different type of lifestyle. 232 00:11:35,905 --> 00:11:38,269 And then once settled agrarian society happened 233 00:11:38,370 --> 00:11:40,916 it set a kind of geographical determinism so to speak, 234 00:11:41,025 --> 00:11:43,498 something other theorists call cultural anthropology 235 00:11:43,607 --> 00:11:46,334 if anyone wants to look that up, it's very fascinating. 236 00:11:46,661 --> 00:11:50,487 And it set the framework for what we see as the market economy today. 237 00:11:50,590 --> 00:11:53,156 You have property, you have capital, the means of production, 238 00:11:53,260 --> 00:11:55,345 you have labor specialization, jobs, you have 239 00:11:55,630 --> 00:11:58,210 the need for regulation, government, protection, law, 240 00:11:58,647 --> 00:12:00,770 and so many other attributes like that which 241 00:12:00,880 --> 00:12:03,141 codified the system we have at the moment. 242 00:12:03,350 --> 00:12:05,905 And within that is the fundamental foundation 243 00:12:06,021 --> 00:12:08,087 of the assumption of universal scarcity. 244 00:12:08,647 --> 00:12:12,450 And it's become a political term because of 245 00:12:12,843 --> 00:12:15,672 if you believe in anything other than a scarcity worldview, 246 00:12:15,898 --> 00:12:19,461 then suddenly you can't justify the rampant competition that we see. 247 00:12:19,694 --> 00:12:21,483 Suddenly you can't justify 248 00:12:21,760 --> 00:12:25,229 eight people having more wealth than the bottom fifty percent of the world. 249 00:12:25,330 --> 00:12:27,861 Suddenly you can't justify all of this imbalance. 250 00:12:28,356 --> 00:12:32,785 And that's why scarcity has to be reevaluated in a very, very serious way. 251 00:12:33,003 --> 00:12:34,218 And going to the food part, 252 00:12:34,443 --> 00:12:38,298 we throw away half of our food right now on this planet, roughly, almost. 253 00:12:39,076 --> 00:12:40,727 Half of the food produced on this planet 254 00:12:40,872 --> 00:12:42,880 with all the energy and hydrocarbons 255 00:12:43,018 --> 00:12:46,058 gets trashed because of inefficiencies in the pipeline 256 00:12:46,341 --> 00:12:49,381 and a general belligerence of western culture at the same time 257 00:12:49,490 --> 00:12:51,061 in our gratuitous materialism, 258 00:12:51,876 --> 00:12:54,669 our lack of consideration of what's really happening in the world. 259 00:12:54,778 --> 00:12:57,767 That's an unfortunate phenomena culturally in western society is we're, 260 00:12:58,283 --> 00:13:01,236 we're blocked off. Anyway, so you have that already, 261 00:13:01,340 --> 00:13:02,967 that we have the potential to feed the entire world, 262 00:13:03,083 --> 00:13:06,130 we produce enough calories to feed the world more or less, 263 00:13:06,261 --> 00:13:07,389 two times over. 264 00:13:07,750 --> 00:13:10,647 And then you have the applied technology that isn't being utilized, 265 00:13:10,750 --> 00:13:12,072 systems-based technology, 266 00:13:12,180 --> 00:13:15,389 the incredible efficiency possibilities of vertical farm systems, 267 00:13:15,970 --> 00:13:19,170 of engineered permaculture, of all sorts of advanced means. 268 00:13:19,781 --> 00:13:21,861 For example if you localized food production, 269 00:13:21,970 --> 00:13:23,483 and say, I'm in Los Angeles, 270 00:13:23,738 --> 00:13:27,105 and we could localize all of our produce if we wanted to, 271 00:13:27,323 --> 00:13:30,014 eliminating the fact that the average American meal 272 00:13:30,123 --> 00:13:32,974 travels about 1500 miles 273 00:13:33,141 --> 00:13:35,047 before it goes to your plate! Think about that. 274 00:13:35,309 --> 00:13:38,596 Because of this horrid work of globalization, 275 00:13:38,890 --> 00:13:41,003 which is about exploiting labor 276 00:13:41,112 --> 00:13:43,178 in far distant lands along with resources. 277 00:13:43,752 --> 00:13:46,276 So, we can do it with what we have today 278 00:13:46,407 --> 00:13:49,316 and if you applied advanced technology that we have under our belt 279 00:13:49,425 --> 00:13:51,585 but is not being funded or subsidized 280 00:13:51,694 --> 00:13:53,520 or invested in to the degrees that are required, 281 00:13:53,636 --> 00:13:56,981 we could easily create a total food abundance on this planet. 282 00:13:57,469 --> 00:13:58,698 I can continue with the other... 283 00:13:58,945 --> 00:14:00,730 - Well what I was gonna say, to stick with this example, 284 00:14:00,843 --> 00:14:02,254 just to sort of see it through 285 00:14:02,630 --> 00:14:05,600 so people can understand sort of your thought process with something like this. 286 00:14:06,170 --> 00:14:08,574 What you're saying will make a lot of sense to most people 287 00:14:08,836 --> 00:14:11,460 who are listening to or watching this interview. 288 00:14:11,658 --> 00:14:15,461 And it will also seem like something that we should be taking more seriously 289 00:14:15,985 --> 00:14:17,738 as a society, as a human race. 290 00:14:18,190 --> 00:14:21,825 But what's the first step in starting to unwind the system we have? 291 00:14:22,330 --> 00:14:24,312 We can do it through this issue of hunger just 292 00:14:24,480 --> 00:14:25,992 because we've been talking about it. 293 00:14:27,287 --> 00:14:28,900 How do you start? What's step one? 294 00:14:29,018 --> 00:14:30,232 And we talk a lot, you know, 295 00:14:30,460 --> 00:14:32,392 I'm reminded of campaign finance reform. 296 00:14:32,500 --> 00:14:34,334 Everybody talks about campaign finance reform, 297 00:14:34,443 --> 00:14:36,145 we've gotta fix how we finance elections, 298 00:14:36,414 --> 00:14:38,189 here's ten different ways that it could be done. 299 00:14:38,450 --> 00:14:40,770 Great! Our decision makers are in 300 00:14:41,030 --> 00:14:42,814 because of the system that got them there. 301 00:14:42,920 --> 00:14:45,105 Why would they change the system that got them there? 302 00:14:45,380 --> 00:14:46,800 We're already at a sort of impasse. 303 00:14:46,916 --> 00:14:48,785 So how do you start working against 304 00:14:48,974 --> 00:14:52,552 such an establishment-incumbent system to make positive change? 305 00:14:53,927 --> 00:14:56,880 Well at the core you need a galvanized community that wants it, 306 00:14:57,003 --> 00:14:58,436 let's point that out first of all. 307 00:14:58,545 --> 00:15:01,432 And without the educational work that needs to be done, 308 00:15:01,549 --> 00:15:05,127 such as why the book was written, to see the potentials, 309 00:15:05,869 --> 00:15:06,981 you can't get very far. 310 00:15:07,100 --> 00:15:09,454 People still believe in general scarcity 311 00:15:10,760 --> 00:15:13,752 as the politicized symbology it is that justifies 312 00:15:13,970 --> 00:15:16,450 an unequal world that we have and we're not going to get very far. 313 00:15:16,560 --> 00:15:19,934 But in terms of technicals as I mentioned briefly in what I said prior, 314 00:15:20,043 --> 00:15:23,374 localization of food coupled with advanced automation, 315 00:15:23,490 --> 00:15:24,880 technology we already have, 316 00:15:25,338 --> 00:15:27,120 we could easily create local 317 00:15:27,230 --> 00:15:30,043 the amount of food that's required without the need for transport. 318 00:15:30,170 --> 00:15:31,781 I'm big on that. I think-... 319 00:15:32,378 --> 00:15:34,938 I always maintain a global consciousness in terms of 320 00:15:35,367 --> 00:15:37,883 recognizing the world as one systemic whole, 321 00:15:38,210 --> 00:15:41,000 but at the same time there are good reasons to localize 322 00:15:41,112 --> 00:15:43,127 and to make things regionally specific 323 00:15:43,340 --> 00:15:46,101 mainly for the saving of efficiency, transport efficiency, 324 00:15:46,210 --> 00:15:49,236 energy efficiency, and of course, distribution efficiency. 325 00:15:49,585 --> 00:15:52,123 So if it was me and I was in a position of policy, 326 00:15:52,327 --> 00:15:54,247 what I would do is create 327 00:15:55,258 --> 00:15:58,552 large automated agricultural systems, 328 00:15:59,410 --> 00:16:02,690 specifically vertical farms or other potentials but we'll just go with that one. 329 00:16:02,901 --> 00:16:05,360 Those have tremendous efficiency potentials because 330 00:16:05,483 --> 00:16:07,330 they can be built in industrial urban areas, 331 00:16:07,560 --> 00:16:10,356 and they use very little water, resources and nutrients to produce 332 00:16:10,530 --> 00:16:12,087 very high quality produce. 333 00:16:12,480 --> 00:16:15,672 And you put those along the coast lines of Los Angeles, wherever you are, 334 00:16:15,796 --> 00:16:18,080 you can put them anywhere ultimately and irrigate to them. 335 00:16:18,290 --> 00:16:21,410 And then you basically do not import anything anymore! 336 00:16:21,570 --> 00:16:25,301 You make it a basic localized mandate to create local food. 337 00:16:25,418 --> 00:16:26,363 And if you do that, 338 00:16:26,540 --> 00:16:28,727 you're gonna solve the poverty problem by extension, 339 00:16:28,836 --> 00:16:30,560 then eventually, you make it free. 340 00:16:30,676 --> 00:16:33,840 Once the automated systems are in place, you quote “socialize” it. 341 00:16:33,956 --> 00:16:35,585 I use that almost tongue in cheek, 342 00:16:35,934 --> 00:16:37,680 but in the most traditional sense today 343 00:16:38,670 --> 00:16:41,272 the term "socialization" means to make it publicly available 344 00:16:41,396 --> 00:16:42,901 without the need for exchange. 345 00:16:43,160 --> 00:16:45,672 And if you had a system doing that with minor subsidization 346 00:16:45,790 --> 00:16:48,625 along with the technical efficiency that would maximize 347 00:16:49,040 --> 00:16:52,050 the efficiency output along with reducing the amount of labor required, 348 00:16:52,269 --> 00:16:53,418 you could do it. 349 00:16:53,556 --> 00:16:56,858 And you would end poverty region by region through that approach. 350 00:16:57,600 --> 00:17:00,087 Whether we're talking about the poverty or hunger example 351 00:17:00,290 --> 00:17:02,756 or more broadly because you talk about so much in the book, 352 00:17:03,670 --> 00:17:06,414 our criminal justice system, incarceration is another area 353 00:17:06,523 --> 00:17:08,058 that you write about significantly, 354 00:17:08,450 --> 00:17:11,396 are most people sort of thinking 355 00:17:11,578 --> 00:17:13,803 too micro, even about solutions? 356 00:17:14,218 --> 00:17:16,290 For example, Universal Basic Income. 357 00:17:16,390 --> 00:17:17,738 This is something that, you know, 358 00:17:17,850 --> 00:17:20,589 economist Richard Wolff for example talks about as 359 00:17:21,230 --> 00:17:23,970 "It's something that would make sense within the current system 360 00:17:24,094 --> 00:17:26,356 but it's not going to change the system we have 361 00:17:26,472 --> 00:17:28,000 to one that makes more sense." 362 00:17:28,180 --> 00:17:29,541 How do you balance 363 00:17:30,203 --> 00:17:34,421 micro-approaches to fixing symptoms of our current system 364 00:17:34,567 --> 00:17:38,363 versus activism towards changing the system more broadly? 365 00:17:40,741 --> 00:17:42,196 Balance is an interesting word. 366 00:17:42,305 --> 00:17:45,614 I'd say it's more of a progressive pattern that 367 00:17:45,840 --> 00:17:50,167 pushes towards larger system changes through more micro-steps. 368 00:17:50,283 --> 00:17:52,734 So Universal Basic Income is a step 369 00:17:52,989 --> 00:17:55,592 towards the acknowledgment at a minimum 370 00:17:55,789 --> 00:17:58,661 that the system we have is inefficient in its distribution. 371 00:17:59,250 --> 00:18:02,072 That's something that just needs to be just blatantly plastered everywhere. 372 00:18:02,181 --> 00:18:05,360 The reason we have inequality is because the system is simply inefficient. 373 00:18:05,520 --> 00:18:08,007 That stands in the face of all those people that say "Well, 374 00:18:08,174 --> 00:18:10,778 markets are the most efficient system we have ever had!" 375 00:18:11,105 --> 00:18:13,534 Actually, you couldn't possibly come up with a more wasteful 376 00:18:13,658 --> 00:18:15,774 and inefficient system than what we have today. 377 00:18:16,101 --> 00:18:18,487 So Universal Basic Income coupled with 378 00:18:18,749 --> 00:18:23,716 creating industries that become “socialized” once again, 379 00:18:23,883 --> 00:18:25,876 through advanced technological means, 380 00:18:25,992 --> 00:18:29,694 are two steps that could lead us to transforming this society 381 00:18:29,876 --> 00:18:31,127 in an incremental way. 382 00:18:31,380 --> 00:18:34,036 And I want to point out, since you brought up Universal Basic Income, 383 00:18:34,140 --> 00:18:35,861 because I know a lot of people that are big into this 384 00:18:35,970 --> 00:18:37,000 and it's been on my mind, 385 00:18:37,250 --> 00:18:39,403 there's one big flaw with Universal Basic Income 386 00:18:39,512 --> 00:18:41,381 and this kind of in-system solution, 387 00:18:41,687 --> 00:18:44,836 and that comes down to what's been termed by other historians as 388 00:18:45,258 --> 00:18:46,807 capitalist contradictions. 389 00:18:47,170 --> 00:18:50,436 What's happened since the 1970s specifically 390 00:18:50,545 --> 00:18:53,309 is the credit expansion in the West has been outrageous. 391 00:18:53,905 --> 00:18:56,720 It's because there's so much debt produced in the system 392 00:18:56,872 --> 00:18:59,010 that people can't keep up, wages have stagnated. 393 00:18:59,170 --> 00:19:01,380 So in order to keep money moving 394 00:19:01,490 --> 00:19:04,581 in this kind of cyclical consumption economy that we have, 395 00:19:05,076 --> 00:19:06,625 you have to give people money! 396 00:19:06,756 --> 00:19:09,578 And what has been done with that is through credit expansion. 397 00:19:12,814 --> 00:19:15,701 43% of the American population spends more 398 00:19:15,934 --> 00:19:18,494 than they actually take in every single year. 399 00:19:18,676 --> 00:19:21,076 It's not just because they're flagrantly living beyond their means, 400 00:19:21,190 --> 00:19:23,330 they have to keep up! They have to keep up with this system 401 00:19:23,440 --> 00:19:25,541 that's effectively moving against them, something in the book I call 402 00:19:25,650 --> 00:19:29,220 structural classism or structural bigotry in effect. 403 00:19:30,138 --> 00:19:32,109 So, my point being is that 404 00:19:32,218 --> 00:19:34,225 when you provide people with Universal Basic Income, 405 00:19:34,330 --> 00:19:39,236 what you're really doing is satisfying a built-in inefficiency of capitalism 406 00:19:39,541 --> 00:19:42,647 which will actually placate the capitalist system 407 00:19:42,756 --> 00:19:44,021 if you don't have a larger view, 408 00:19:44,130 --> 00:19:46,043 and I hope people understand what I mean by that. 409 00:19:46,254 --> 00:19:48,981 Because you're giving people money that they can spend back into the system 410 00:19:49,140 --> 00:19:51,556 which ultimately through the magic of structural classism 411 00:19:51,701 --> 00:19:54,036 will trickle right back up to the upper one percent anyway. 412 00:19:54,250 --> 00:19:56,385 Well that's the inherent ... 413 00:19:58,560 --> 00:20:02,603 impossibility of the system we have. I mean when you look at credit, 414 00:20:02,770 --> 00:20:04,967 you would only loan someone money 415 00:20:05,360 --> 00:20:07,090 if you believe that in the future 416 00:20:07,200 --> 00:20:09,076 things are going to be better for them such that 417 00:20:09,178 --> 00:20:12,421 they could pay that back with interest, so on and so forth. 418 00:20:12,820 --> 00:20:16,167 If you have a planet of limited resources and size 419 00:20:16,270 --> 00:20:19,454 and some at least at this point, hypothetical maximum 420 00:20:19,607 --> 00:20:21,476 population carrying capacity, 421 00:20:21,752 --> 00:20:24,632 at some point that system is going to fail you, isn't it? 422 00:20:26,020 --> 00:20:28,167 Well absolutely, if you're speaking about 423 00:20:28,458 --> 00:20:31,061 credit as a general phenomenon, 424 00:20:31,229 --> 00:20:35,454 keep in mind, we produce more interest in this system than money. 425 00:20:35,620 --> 00:20:38,050 So the debt plus the interest that's created 426 00:20:38,923 --> 00:20:41,310 exceeds the money supply of our entire planet, 427 00:20:41,658 --> 00:20:44,320 which is basically a recipe for 428 00:20:44,465 --> 00:20:47,323 bankruptcies and failures and more oppression of the lower class. 429 00:20:47,500 --> 00:20:50,836 There's about $200 trillion right now in outstanding money, 430 00:20:51,090 --> 00:20:54,589 excuse me, in outstanding DEBT on this planet, $200 trillion, 431 00:20:54,821 --> 00:20:58,916 and there's only about $81 trillion in actual currency, in actual money. 432 00:20:59,229 --> 00:21:03,585 So that disparity effectively translates into more repossessed houses, 433 00:21:04,140 --> 00:21:07,323 more empowerment of the financial services sector and the banking system 434 00:21:07,440 --> 00:21:09,360 because they're the ones that take that physical property, 435 00:21:09,570 --> 00:21:12,210 hence the one percent and the elitism that we see today, 436 00:21:12,501 --> 00:21:14,705 and so on and so forth. So no, it's not sustainable. 437 00:21:14,872 --> 00:21:16,916 It's only sustainable from the standpoint of 438 00:21:17,230 --> 00:21:20,705 the acceptance of social failure, acceptance of social inequality, 439 00:21:20,945 --> 00:21:22,872 acceptance of social oppression and suffering. 440 00:21:23,141 --> 00:21:24,218 And sadly enough, 441 00:21:24,334 --> 00:21:26,778 people today have been so indoctrinated into that reality 442 00:21:27,018 --> 00:21:28,705 they can't see beyond it, know what I mean? 443 00:21:29,160 --> 00:21:31,549 No doubt about it. Now, thinking ahead, 444 00:21:31,840 --> 00:21:33,883 it's such a 30,000 foot problem that I think 445 00:21:33,990 --> 00:21:36,480 it's difficult for a lot of people to even conceive of that: 446 00:21:36,952 --> 00:21:39,803 $200 trillion in debt, $80 trillion in money. 447 00:21:40,065 --> 00:21:41,592 What eventually happens? 448 00:21:43,461 --> 00:21:45,534 Well you have the boom and bust cycle as it's called, 449 00:21:45,650 --> 00:21:49,549 which is really driven less by tangible innovation and so on 450 00:21:49,660 --> 00:21:51,970 as is pitched in traditional economic workbooks, 451 00:21:52,283 --> 00:21:54,894 and more by just the influx and outflux of money. 452 00:21:55,389 --> 00:21:58,232 So you have periods of monetary expansion, 453 00:21:58,680 --> 00:22:03,745 whether it's basic interest rates ... being lowered 454 00:22:03,860 --> 00:22:07,323 that creates monetary expansion or when there's crises, they do QE and so on. 455 00:22:07,570 --> 00:22:09,156 So you have that period of expansion 456 00:22:09,338 --> 00:22:11,607 that creates more money into circulation 457 00:22:11,723 --> 00:22:13,323 that goes into the production of goods, 458 00:22:13,447 --> 00:22:15,090 into the hire of people and labor. 459 00:22:15,330 --> 00:22:17,330 And then you build effectively more debt 460 00:22:17,450 --> 00:22:20,160 because all money's created out of debt. (I hope you're aware of that, 461 00:22:20,850 --> 00:22:23,287 that's one of the central problems underlying the market system.) 462 00:22:23,570 --> 00:22:25,869 So all money's created out of debt with interest charge upon it, 463 00:22:26,065 --> 00:22:28,254 and you produce two phenomenon. You produce too much debt, 464 00:22:28,363 --> 00:22:31,040 you get debt saturation whether it's domestically or internationally, 465 00:22:31,323 --> 00:22:32,676 and then you get inflation. 466 00:22:32,820 --> 00:22:35,636 So when debt and inflation become too high in the boom-bust cycle, 467 00:22:35,745 --> 00:22:37,876 that's when they contract interest rates 468 00:22:38,109 --> 00:22:41,650 and that's when you start to see the real structural classism kick in 469 00:22:41,760 --> 00:22:42,923 and that's where the failure happens. 470 00:22:43,040 --> 00:22:45,563 Again, we accept this failure as though that's just the way it is, 471 00:22:45,687 --> 00:22:47,345 as you know. It's really stunning 472 00:22:47,454 --> 00:22:50,341 because the amount of suffering that happens on that downturn 473 00:22:50,480 --> 00:22:51,440 is truly staggering. 474 00:22:52,290 --> 00:22:55,214 During the 2008 Great Recession, 475 00:22:56,261 --> 00:23:00,843 there were 500,000 deaths during that block of time 476 00:23:01,170 --> 00:23:03,098 due to a lack of medical treatment 477 00:23:03,316 --> 00:23:06,829 correlated to the Great Recession, for people that had cancer. 478 00:23:07,141 --> 00:23:09,934 There were also about 46,000 suicides 479 00:23:10,040 --> 00:23:12,996 across the United States and about 63 other nations 480 00:23:13,309 --> 00:23:14,800 that correlated to it as well. 481 00:23:15,010 --> 00:23:17,061 So this is a caustic deadly phenomenon, 482 00:23:17,210 --> 00:23:19,076 and people don't perceive that structural violence 483 00:23:19,180 --> 00:23:20,749 because they're detached from it, you know what I mean? 484 00:23:21,760 --> 00:23:24,218 Everyone thinks of violence as you put a gun to somebody's head. 485 00:23:24,385 --> 00:23:27,316 There is a whole painful level of violence 486 00:23:27,432 --> 00:23:29,970 that happens from a structural imposition, 487 00:23:30,218 --> 00:23:34,000 something Johan Galtung called, as I said, structural violence. 488 00:23:34,130 --> 00:23:37,745 He's another individual of the Gandhi Institute I think people should look into. 489 00:23:38,501 --> 00:23:41,469 If people really realized the violence that is happening 490 00:23:41,607 --> 00:23:44,320 through things like the boom and bust cycle, through this debt system, 491 00:23:44,500 --> 00:23:47,061 through just the inequality gaming patterns that 492 00:23:47,258 --> 00:23:49,170 happen with capitalism and the fact that 493 00:23:49,505 --> 00:23:51,098 if you have enough money and wealth, 494 00:23:51,210 --> 00:23:53,927 you will continue to get more money and wealth and power. 495 00:23:54,130 --> 00:23:56,640 So the social mobility has always been in question. 496 00:23:56,750 --> 00:23:58,821 It's much worse today than it ever was and so on. 497 00:24:00,420 --> 00:24:02,240 I often say, I fear for the day - 498 00:24:02,356 --> 00:24:04,741 I both fear and long for the day, David - 499 00:24:05,025 --> 00:24:07,360 where the general population realizes 500 00:24:07,476 --> 00:24:09,600 the violence that's happening against them. 501 00:24:09,898 --> 00:24:12,145 Because once they perceive that, 502 00:24:12,429 --> 00:24:13,949 it's not going to be pretty. 503 00:24:14,785 --> 00:24:17,330 The book is 'The New Human Rights Movement.' 504 00:24:17,447 --> 00:24:19,949 We've been speaking with the books author, Peter Joseph, 505 00:24:20,058 --> 00:24:22,269 also founder of The Zeitgeist Movement. 506 00:24:22,670 --> 00:24:25,003 Peter, thanks so much for being on, I've been looking forward to this. 507 00:24:25,870 --> 00:24:28,007 Absolutely David, I really appreciate your time. 508 00:24:28,350 --> 00:24:30,734 Thank you for the great show, I always enjoy listening to you. 509 00:24:31,090 --> 00:24:31,549 Thank you.