Transcription
What? What do you think this is all going down, Dennis? I mean, is this the unraveling of the empire, the unraveling of the republic? Because a lot of things are impacted by this. We see, as you mentioned, the fragmentation of the transatlantic relationship. I mean, I know that the European leaders are willing to bend over backwards in order to, you know, appease or bow to Trump and to try to keep the partnership alive, but by ignoring their basic national interest, they're just building up a lot of resentment and a powerful opposition ready to reverse everything. So, it's not sustainable.
We see the relationship with Israel under tension. The Arab states, they will also have to adjust to new realities in East Asia. They also have to make some conclusions based on the, well, the decline of the US. Within America, we see Trump will be humiliated. This is going to be very difficult for, you know, for his government to survive. And, you know, whoever comes after Trump, every US president seems to run on the idea that, you know, we will restore greatness. But, if being a successful president requires you to adjust to new realities, that is a multipolar world, it's going to be, I mean, this will shake the foundation of the US as well.
How does this play into the whole, I guess, political economic situation in the world? Because it's not just America standing alone. I mean, this is, for the past 30-plus years, the entire world order has been organized around the US empire. What happens? I guess it's a very, very big question about what happens next.
Well, I all I can offer, I mean, you're right. It's a big question. It's the great question to ask. I think what we're going to see, and the major player in it, not the only player, but the major player in it, will likely be China. They're going to have to decide, the Chinese, um, together with the rest of the world, whether the next phase of our history as a planet will be, and I'm going to be brutally brief here, but to get the idea across, are we going to move to a Chinese empire? Is that what's going to happen? That we're going to watch whatever forms the decline of the American empire is going to take. Who else is in a position to replace that? And the answer is no European country. That's ridiculous. And really, who else? Russia can't do that. It's much too, too small economically. China is the up, I mean, China. It's China. Or as an alternative to moving in which the Chinese empire step by step displaces and then replaces the American. And if you want to see how that works, look at Asia and look at Africa. Look at Latin America. I mean, country after country, whether it's the port or the railroad system or the school system or the health system, come the Chinese specialists who are doing those things, are building the ports, building the railroad. I mean, it's one after another. And it includes countries that are BRICS countries, the friendly, but also countries that are not. And they, they're going to Washington and they're being given a deal, and then they go to Beijing and they get a better deal, and they go with the better deal. It is, this is not, this is not anywhere near as complicated as you might imagine.
Or are the Chinese smart enough, having been an empire before, so it's kind of in their history, that this is not what their strategy ought to be, that they, that if you do that, you are setting yourself up to have happened to you what you are now doing to the last empire. It's as if the United States could have learned from being a part of the British Empire. Do you really want to be in the role of the dominating country against which you just made a revolution? Is that really where you want to go? Americans never asked themselves that question. They just went and did it. Now, now they have to answer. The Chinese maybe, maybe will be a society in the position of creating, supporting, encouraging genuine multilateral, multinational. I mean, part of me, and I admit my utopian longings, everybody has them, I have them, too. After World War I, we tried the League of Nations. After World War II, we tried the United Nations. Okay, maybe we don't have to have World War III before we make another effort to try in a serious way to work something out other than the empire. Otherwise, we live in that world of great power conflict in which we're grateful for a great power, no matter how oppressive, because they keep a lid on everything. They make, they make peace because they want to control. And so, the minute they, they reach their end, we're back in the terrible time you and I are talking about when it's all, it's in flux and everybody's fighting. And all maybe you can seal all of that, grasp its repetitiousness in our history, and go for something else. If you ask me, is that going to happen? Of course, I don't know. Will the Chinese see all this? I don't know. Is there a lot of evidence one way or the other? I, if there is, I don't see it. The Chinese say it. I'll give them that. Xi Jinping talks like that occasionally. But whether that is, you know, holiday rhetoric or whether that is serious, I don't know. I wish I did, but I don't. I think I think more and more people will be asking this question, the one you posed, the one I'm trying to deal with. We're going to have people weighing in on which way it looks to be going and which way would be better for it to go with that utopian, if you like, image in their mind as as we need to have domestic economic arrangements that support, facilitate that kind of working of things out. Otherwise, if we, if we set it up in the way that capitalism did as a historical phase, competing nation-states, this, this is a recipe, you know. Each nation-state is capitalist. The capitalists have to reinvest their profits to grow. Their growth is a condition of their survival. They can't all grow at the same time. They can't do it. They have to work that out, and that means a mechanism to work things out. And that's often war. And then, then we're back to square one, and whether that lesson will be learned, and we will ask the question. Just think with me for a moment that we ought to interrogate the organization of our economic systems at home in terms of their proclivity towards a nation-state great power warfare resolution of their conflicts, or whether there ought to be a wholly different way of organizing. You know, the discussion between capitalists and socialists or capitalists and communists or Marxists and non-Marxists could have been conducted on that basis, but usually hasn't been. As if somehow they could focus on macroeconomics within the nation-state and leave the rest to be what? Worked out? Well, we're living through the working out of that, and it, it's [clears throat] not, it's not a successful arrangement.
I would just look at the. Well, again, when one looks at the decline of the US empire, many people are struck with some concern. And there should be some concern. We don't know what comes next, but, but it could be full of opportunities as well in terms of the United States having a more sustainable role in the international system if it's one among many powers, if it's more balanced. And also, as Zbigniew Brzezinski said, all over wrote when he essentially wrote the Bible for unipolarity in the 1990s, was that it was going to be very difficult for the US to be an empire abroad and a democracy at home. And so it would look, it would seem as if this time moving forward, it doesn't have to be one of problems, it could be one of the US essentially restoring its economic and financial discipline and, yes, stabilizing, improving its domestic governance. I mean, there's, it's, um, I, and also it seems to me that China can't really take over the position of the US because the role the US had, this global empire, this was a very unique period of history. That is, through history, over the past centuries, you had fewer and fewer actors, and then, of course, throughout the Cold War, you had two major actors, and then the Soviet Union ceased to be, and you have one global superpower. I think this is the last time we're going to see in the history of all in the foreseeable future, at least, only having one superpower. Wouldn't I mean, even if China aspires now for global primacy, even its closest allies, be it Russia, would then begin to distance itself. It would, the Indians would then give up its autonomy to take a more fierce balancing approach. I think an equilibrium would restore itself if the Chinese went this way. So, I, I just don't see. I don't think the Chinese are blind. I think they realize that a lot of the support they have in the world is because they're not pushing, pushing this hegemonic approach. And, but, yeah, do you have any final thoughts?
Yes. I wish I hope you're right. I wish that the Chinese would have learned or will learn or do learn that lesson that you just summarized nicely. But I know that here in the United States, they haven't learned anything. They didn't learn anything from the British Empire and its collapse, in which they played a role. They went on ahead and tried very hard to be the global hegemon. And under Mr. Brzezinski's and Henry Kissinger, they literally went about doing that, administering that, and feeling very good and proud, and not worrying about the future at all. Let me give you as a final thought how I understand this. And, and you know where I come from, so it won't surprise you. You made an interesting quotation. I forget from whom. You can't be an empire abroad and a democracy at home. Well, let me give you a parallel statement. I think it's from Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter a century ago. And he said, "You can't have great concentrations of wealth and have a democracy. Those two things cannot coexist." So, he's a Supreme Court Justice. He writes this down. And I would guess that most of the people sitting in an audience where someone says that would nod in agreement. And the reality of America is it made absolutely no difference at all. It is a rhetorical flourish that has not grasped the roots of the people who have to believe it if it's ever going to come true. So, what do we have? We have the greatest concentration of wealth in American history. It's worse now than it was in the 19th century. It's as if the entire 20th century, when inequality was reduced in the United States, above all by the Great Depression of the 1930s, which compressed it like an accordion. All of that has been undone. We have returned and surpassed to levels of inequality. Are they consistent with democracy? Of course not. This last week, we celebrated, and I mean that word carefully, in this country, the arrival of Mr. Elon Musk as the world's first trillionaire. In other words, over the last few weeks, the man who was already the richest man in the world, credited with a personal wealth in the hundreds of billions of dollars, saw that grow, so he's now a trillionaire. So, that's how capitalism works. It makes the rich richer. It always has, until people have revolted or the system has convulsed. Then we have a period of decompression until that's overcome, and then we resume what the basic tendency is. Well, I'm afraid the same thing operates here. Yeah, you're right. It, it, it isn't compatible. The wealth corrupts our democracy, and we have as corrupt a democracy as you could imagine. Our government is bought and paid for. It, it, it, it's stunning. You can't understand Israel without that. Israel figured that out and figured out how to use it. It gets to the point of absurdity. The United States government funds Israel. Israel funds AIPAC. AIPAC buys the government that funds Israel to give it. You have to have a sense of humor, otherwise this will drive you crazy. So, what's the conclusion? That's what I was hinting at before. You've got to deal with capitalism. Capitalism has its own dynamic. It's just as important as the great power conflicts that people like to talk about these days, which I understand. The great power is falling apart, and so everybody's focused on great power maneuvers and countermoves and all of that. I understand. Is there a logic to it? Yes. Is there a world in which these great powers? Yes. But it is not unique and separate from the world of capitalism, its growth impetus, and all that that implies. If you leave that structure intact, you're going to get the results. And one of them is the building of an empire, and another one is the decline of an empire, and then the next one is what does the emerging economy China, how it, is it going to be different? Well, my argument, I think it'll depend on how they manage their internal economic system. They are a very strange economy, half private capitalist, half state enterprise. How with a government and a Communist Party coordinating all of this, offsetting the weaknesses of the one by using the other in a hybrid or clever, unique, very successful, should be a lesson to everybody, isn't it. But it still leaves to them, is that an adequate way to manage your accession to the dominant role you're going to have, or will it plunge you into the same evolutionary dead end that happened with the United States?
Well, it remains to be seen. It's at least it will be interesting times ahead. So, well, thank you very much for taking time out of your morning.
Let me take a moment because I'm not sure your other guests will do it. Uh, your program is getting better and better. I look at it as often as I can get a moment to see it. Your questions are great. Your guests are great. Some of your recent shows on what's going on in Iran, the European catastrophe have been wonderfully instructive and, and it's a service you're performing that I want you to know many of us see it, appreciate it, and are telling everybody we know, go take a look at this, you will learn a lot.
Well, thank you very much. I appreciate it. That's, you know, pretty coming from you. Thank you.