hello to you. all and very very big welcome to worlds apart as you can probably gas some joining us now from our usual studio bugs from the comfort of my own home and most going to conference over the last couple of weeks of isolation has become an overbearing and while most of us can't wait to go back to our normal lives it's

hard to tell what normal even means at this point how will the college 19 ordeal changed the way we run our politics economy and social relations well it just doesn't amount joined by william robinson professor of sociology at the university of california at santa barbara professor robinson it's good to talk to you thank you for your time thank you for having me on i can see that you're also connecting with you know a whole no no the only one you have and they hold whatever war almost a month. what it's been like for you. well we're on yeah we're on lockdown the university closed over a month ago in the 1st week of march and we moved to online education i mean this is a completely different light we know it last forever but i also think that we're never going to go back to normalcy it will be by normalcy 'd is great pandemic and now

you've been writing about the perils of have to receive globalization for many years and i think it's fair to say that you've been pretty sure radical about it by the standards of the wall street journal i wonder if these last weeks and months have changed your analysis in any way not at all i think it confirms my analysis i've been arguing for the last decade or so that what we're capitalism crisis is both a structural crisis and it is also a crisis of state what you're going to see in a capitalist edge of money and this pandemic did not cause the crisis you know only major they asked us to write and may and revealed to the whole world and it's going to aggravate all of that the dimensions of the crisis the health emergency relents but we're still going to be left with this dual crisis of structural the structural crisis of the economy and the political crisis of state legitimacy and have generally been mainway how base that structural crisis manager after it's off is

very interested and an accelerating inequality you know they talk like for sound a warning more than if. we. undermine capital as a. nation difficult to function it's a bit like a snake eating its own tail i wonder how do you think because 19 pandemic is going to just bag these. struggling system do you think it's going to x. and it's like time by a little bit or do you think it will be ultimately to final blow to. don't know if this is going to be the final blow to the global capitalism no not at all i wish that were the case now but to be honest with you i'm a democratic socialist but let's look at what's happened a global inequalities are simply unprecedented we've never seen these levels you mentioned one percent controls over 50 percent of the world's well but

a more relevant data is that 20 percent of the world's people those that could supply them the system control 95 percent of the world's wealth so 80 percent of the world's population and that's somebody they cannot consume and so that will economy has been pouring out over recent years and decades more and more well but the global market cannot absorb well so that has let's a. stagnation this has been a crisis waiting to happen this year actually mention of a crisis and i just said you know it would have happened without the fibrous that myself but many others have been talking about us being on the verge of a major recession even deeper than a recession if the us for instance that iran if argentina had declared a moratorium on its debt that would have triggered this giant structural crisis and the measures that are being taken now to address merchants see them temporary measures but they're going to aggravate the long term structural dimensions but i think what bastes. comet 19 or deal dreams. been assassin

or structural agree justin and what i mean by that is that global production change will have to reconfigure if i may you want it or not me governments including the american government i'm now actively thinking about bringing to production oh. supply home and data hardly a positive development when the transnational capital classes. yes but that's temporary on the contrary what i refer to as transnational elites have been some have been actually well 1st of all the measures taken by governments especially. the u.s. government is oh is good just very similar to 2008 and those measures that only only going to aggravate the underlying structural contradictions of global capitalism i think the problem is with the thinking of salmond the thinking and if planning because one thing that the creatures of capitalism have now been taking

into account is a risk that the global economy can come to a halt their wage happened over the last couple of weeks and months and once you factor that enter your notion of profitability changes dramatically all of a sudden the world stops being your oyster and it's easy to see how localizing production and consumption in a wide specific area may see like if they for auction and i creamed by extension it's going to give bill a big governments and local communities more bargaining power in dealing with this huge company well this chamber that doesn't mean they're going to get their way i mean the only way out of this crisis is a major restructuring of the system it cannot continue with this nail liberal capitalist it was a should model of the last several decades but so far what states are doing in a suggestion way that the principle state in the world the strongest in the world the united states is repeating what we did in 2008 which is to send mr amounts of

resources to the banks so you are right that we can't continue the way we were and you're also right that a lot of transnational beats and state officials are recognizing that but that doesn't translate into the banks and the global corporations that drive the global economy to actually force them to undertake major restructuring and there is a robinson to be a fairy fairy i think what we see around the world is the governments giving assistance not only to use and large industries but also to die most vulnerable citizens there is a lot of talk about they should auction a basic income. many governments are sending checks that is here and maybe that's not an odd but i think that. that's a bit of a difference from how it was handled in 2008 let's look at this the figure and this is the economist magazine economists just get a sense that you know that already 7 trillion dollars have been approved at least stimulus packages just in to european union and the united states to 1st of all the

vast majority of that is going to corporate balance and secondly it's going into injection of money into the banks to do it they want the banks are not obliged to help yes yes they're released true grounds but they're not going to resolve this structural crisis they're basically crimes that are better in some countries like germany and denmark right here in united states $2400.00 for a family of you know 2 grand winners is absolutely nothing it's irrelevant perms and well when you multiply it by millions that have actual lot of money you've taken out of a state coffers you know it's a few billions of dollars it's absolutely not and but but look at something else also there's also billions of dollars here in the united states going to small business they are getting long in 3 months they have to pay back that no roads so there's no real fundamental restructuring here the same thing for instance the

i.m.f. just announced a trillion dollar package for poor countries and us and it's and a moratorium on current more tournament pavements but once they have to resume payments we're going to be back in the same situation make it out to get there on the internet isn't it also a chair that initially one shadows sat. stimulus measures were announced they were no one in line with what has been done before but i think the governments are and asking it as they go away and there is no actor there they're reading a discussion in the united states to be written off in the company's he'd die and lawyers are the majority of the employees employed so. i feel we can't be certain how this house from this day is going to ultimately manifest itself but well let's put it like this the battle for what will happen after the health emergency itself rastas is now underway and there are certainly many voices among states among

transnational waste that are saying we need a major restructuring and this is the starting point for these kind of can as in stimulus measures and the really programs and if these voices win them then that would be that would certainly be a way forward but currently we don't have any indication that they're going to win and the real economic and financial was me main with the banks and we name with those sectors of the globe or corporate class that are simply course it's a more profit making and more sturdy now you mentioned a moment ago that you see this crisis as a crisis of state legitimacy and i think many political scientists would disagree with you because. they would suggest that this crisis if anything has reasserted the importance of a nation state you mean just like you don't shall i know you do but it is don't know chopra's telling g.m. what to do not the other way around hasn't called it 19 actually reasserted the importance all nations made as

a way to reorganize our social lives absolutely i'm not arguing anything differently and on the contrary the crisis demonstrates that we need the state we need sentence adventure in the market in the economy we need state regulation when i speak about a crisis of state richard i'm a senior generally i'm not referring to the un research into how billions of people around the. world don't consider their own governments in their own states legitimate don't trust in those governments and in a capitalist system to resell their survival needs. to mention chunk i in one of your articles here accused him of quote criminal inaction and as a spy i took it upon himself to close the borders before it became standard practice he took a lot of criticism for that as well i'm sure one can find many faults with his actions but isn't it inevitable that any government would be elaborate in dealing with so many analysts. and then in the case of look up trump this is very clear the

timeline is very clear on january 30th the world health organization declared local and out of the global emergency and trump all he did after that announcement was to suspend flights from china and we lost all of february in the 1st quarter part question of march it wasn't until march 14th the truck just layered a national emergency so we lost 6 weeks and during those 6 weeks trump was saying that this is a democratic hopes that the whole economy is going to reopen in april 1st that more people die of the flu than of this pandemic so absolutely you can't defend trump is criminal inept it's a no that's not the case for other governments around the world i mean look at the fantastic job of the south korean government gitmo china's reopened again but as far as is trump i would defend that criminal ineptitude and i know that you have an issue with glorious add. that up as a moral and ethical category act previous a couple of years ago back in the beautiful fair world of the future we'll have to

i donned a national citizenship and when it comes to and gag orders really very well line of the balance i may not well yes for a health emergency but that's very different than what i've been arguing we have several hundreds of millions of transnational migrants we have an increasingly globally it's a great reduction service and financial system and capital and corporations have been moving around the world in finance with many more accelerated fashion for the last few decades and yet people and people have been to an increasingly economy such as the u.s. economy is dependent on transnational my gran's are but puzzles mine and migrants when they go from one person to another the world economy and play a critical role in that economy they don't have civil rights they don't have medical rights they don't have the rights of citizenship so that's an extremely unjust arrangements. and they're also

a chance of grace would tell you that they are also driving the wages down as make labor protections when the local. population is far more precarious do you think they're wrong on that. absolutely the wrong because 1st of all here in the united states we have our right here in california which is one of the best of all worlds now we have an incredible labor source shortage the if this health crisis continues california will collapse and the majority of those articles will workers are immigrants and i don't know any u.s. citizens that can get any job that has political rights that want to go and pick strawberries in the field but that's not the larger issue i think way to. president clinton after g a week so much of isolation i'm sure there will be a lot of people we should use it become stronger is i mean i mean all i hear mike now i'm so sick and tired of you know we have to take a short break right now and perhaps if you're if you are. one of the. working from

home but maybe we'll be back in a few moments thank you. for that is used to be some psycho don't put away your a.t.m. receipts. to believe to find they can be so easy to show it in the police. to take the safe rule sets walk because it is next you don't.

give us a safety feature and you move on to the sort of the. welcome back to rules of the park with william robinson professor of sociology abby university of california santa barbara should i said speaking about the response to this been demick i think it's a big county teacher can't even ironic that the countries with the most laissez faire economies like let's say the united states had to impose strikes have a restrictions on businesses while a country like sweden and this beacon all what and they socialists chose not to do that which approach you're more sympathetic to.

absolutely the traumatic a lockdown is crucial and necessary in the united states and european countries are the ones and the kit but my biggest concern of we as we have to look at the whole world and the lockdown which is imposed for instance in india in the central american countries and south africa where 6070 percent of the population is in the informal sector and the sites of a lot you know if you're homeless if you're just probably living in one single rule only left out a message that we do need to at least you know in france in the united states and russia is actually a death sentence for hunt you know hundreds of millions or billions of people in other parts of the world yeah that's actually a very crucial point that south isolation is a strategy if you are sending this pandemic is a privilege that not everybody can afford now and we are yet to see how different approaches that how outcomes in different countries i think it's fair to say that for the time being woken sway then and in the united states the dow toll continues

to climb but i think it's also cheery that these kind of a long down is absolutely unprecedented and it's a shame killer invented. history of character is nothing of the sort has ever been that something on cheers shoggoth by there is this can read and be out of it even if reached it was instituted almost everywhere in the world i mean the little richest countries of the well that's me right you know about what that shows is if the major states and the worlds can almost overnight lock down the population and close down the economy for the health emergency then the same can be done through the economic and social emergency that we've been facing long before the content i mean that moves the points and that and that also through the claim that perhaps they said transnational capitalists i'm not as. strong and carter planted in the actual as in your theory them to be. no i don't think that proves the point at all

because again if again you know this lockdown and the paralysis of the company is very temporary but then measures taken and that's why i stress this points earlier the measures taken to take trillions of dollars and give nots of the banks to do as they will suggests that the transnational capitalist class is going to come out of this winning unless you know there's there's both state give there's more and like members of the elites and states and unless there's also some mystery government you know mass strikes and pressures from below to do something different. i mean because europeans are talking about bad before and that if the banks in deep can keep me and read that old ways that would be true that will reduction and because as you very adequately argue you know capitalism can all go on for the like bad being the structural imbalance that exists. you know and then reach having all the

money and be the rest of us having no money to spend ultimately makes capitalism incapable of functioning why should they come up with some their alternative for that state yes absolutely but the thing is that individual corporations individual a capitalist have only one thing that they're interested in is maximizing profit so we need state and mess up your control and regulation will return pittel and i hate to be the point but let's remember what happened in 2008 it was clear that we needed major restructuring and 42082020 not only did we not get a major restructuring of the system but all of the programs were deep bench so the lessons of 2008 say that after we get these you know that helps emergent state things are going to continue to deepen to get worse unless states and it lightens elites and masses from below have the ability to impose a restructuring and to know what's. and in her you know character it on the trans national cut will last. i know that you believe that round this has been damaged is

all more at many of our societies will look more like police they said or rob there and global police say isn't that a bit too just ok and because even if some governments prompts you to temptation of making this emergency powers more permanent their resources for maintaining this sort of regime indefinitely actually and we deplete it it's not in that interest you know right before this in december 2019 u.s. congress approved over $800000000000.00 write the biggest military budget in in in history right now the central lloyd's coordination of this crisis if you were that we need but through centralized coordination doesn't sense of occasion of control of surveillance of the movements of people and so what lose no reason to assume that there are countless states especially the u.s. they began which is a center of the world you know the global system and the military industrial

complex there's no reason to believe that they're going to pull back on what i call the increasing move towards of local police states right now we have a wave of strikes and mass discontent the united states to the extent that there is more rebellion from below against global inequality right and against the and against everything going on to the extent that it escalates after the emergency has lifted we're going to have more pressure from above to impose social control in truck kone and we'll look at the state take measures in any police state that matters require centralization and i think over in this crisis we haven't seen because of centralization yard talking about the many of the traditionally more essential eyes space like russia and china that has been. you know we've seen time delegation of decision making to regional authorities and i think even in the united states the federal government has been acting more like. sort of you know has been lying charges logistics than anything else what is there to support this

theory is a global police state i mean if i think there is a known global community anymore everybody is scary for them south of time what i mean by a global police state is that 1st of all as we started this interview with these incredible mobility quality and unless those inequalities are merely rated the really whoops need to clamp down at the best discontent a rebellion which is generated by that inequality whether or not the clamp down to centralize the giant states and suddenly remember it will be a police state is that increasingly the whole mobile economy has the feeling of self out of stagnation by wars and by conflicts and system of social control and repression and unless there is an alternative willing out of stagnation the global can as you newsom's on social spending from raising what will demand there's no reason to expect we're not going to see more intensified conflict around the world which becomes very difficult for corporations and banks that finance themselves

will. you know i have been challenging the soviet union i think because the major difference between the old style author of parity of public mind a century and b. there can use that allegory terry neal is exactly how digital those social controls are when i say openly a crisis it's the place clear i'm just sliding down spend when i've done a great cleaning when people believe that they are actually really when dad being controlled it's much harder to resist isn't it will wanting to craigslist new the ability of people be in charge on their own lives and if you aren't you are should read police matters it will become apparent that they're not. right well i think this you know to let the global police state beats down on 2 different populations that 20 percent you and i 2 1 many of the listeners who can get by it maybe even more sort of this system sure there's more surveillance on us our own store now going to be you know monitor of the movement and so forth but but we're not the

principal you know targets of the global police say the principle targets are again you know that the 700000000 transnational refugees and people in war zones the targets of will probably say where for instance wars are at least by the united states in iran or in iraq just in order to generate cost and those places of them they have guessed death displacement you know destruction of their lives that are victims of global police state i mean it's not so much human rights here well i think there are many 20 percent are also struggling quite a lot i tend to approach these issues from that public health risk that they find i think at the current consumerist affinities new way to exist in the united states and the waves being spread around the world is out ultimately designed for. an addict a neurotic middle balik really does the right individual who consumes more than he or she needs who waste just as much and well out of it now becomes

a cash cow when medical and all on all sorts of services i mean to some extent you know karkare ations are a just and i was living longer but having miserable life so that me do your sources of income and i wonder do you think college at 19 would be big enough and riskier who are people to pay more attention to how they choose to consume yeah but i mean you're making a really good point that i have to add to you know full blown critique of consumerism but you know one of the good things i see coming out of this emergency is the nail role model which again i mean i don't like global capitalism. but particularly its nail liberal variant has been in place for several decades and what isn't generated at the cultural in the social level is consumerism narcissism individual ism and alienation as you pointed out but what we're seeing now is that this health emergency is sparking a new sense of solidarity of mutual aid of connectedness to other people so again

the this emergency is a turning point and what's going to come after it not just in terms of the economy that we've been speaking about a political systems but in terms of you know consciousness and cultural systems as one opened out to struggle what comes next while speaking of god when this nearly of your own model there are some x. rays especially here in russia who believe that the crisis of capitalism that we had just got in right now was in many ways sort of ad dream determined by the collapse of the sony at uni and and the discrediting of the leftist ideas based on being an ideological balance to near liberal ideas which ultimately produce this runaway globalization and inequality what norm would there are sufficient going to take some hybrid of achieve it do you have any idea. what mission be expiring to you i think the type of restructuring we need to struggle horn's clients or at this

point involves extending like what we have right now is definite spending and can as in stimulus we move need to resort to or towards a global can as it is and that raises global demand among that 80 percent we need to move towards systems where states once again regulate the market regulate what corporations and financial institutions can do we need to rebuild public sectors especially public and also educational sectors and social welfare systems we need to tax the rich and have progressive taxation rather than repressive taxation we need to have capital controls on financial speculation across borders we need kroger policies we need in the united states and we've been calling the green new jails all of that is what we need tennis even within global capitalism that's not moving beyond. well and professor learn from that we also have to leave it there because our time is up but i'm really grateful to you for sharing your insights with us today thank you thank you so much for having me on. thank you for watching and hope to syria again next week on well they're quite as they say and they have.

join me every thursday on the alex salmond show and i'll be speaking to guest of the world the politics sports business i'm show business i'll see you then.

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