Unraveling Power: Dr. Matthew Pate on Wealth Disparity, State Resilience, and Ethical Governance

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Jack Hopkins Show podcast, where
stories about the power of focusand resilience are revealed by
the people who live thosestories and now the host of the
Jack Hopkins Show podcast, jackHopkins.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Hello and welcome to the Jack Hopkins Show podcast.
I'm your host, jack Hopkins,and welcome to the Jack Hopkins
Show podcast.
I'm your host, jack Hopkins.
Today I am excited and I domean excited to have Dr Matthew
Pate as my guest.
He's an internationally knowncriminologist, editorialist and
author of three books on crimeand world affairs.

(00:41):
His studies of punishment, raceand policing have appeared in
dozens of academic and worldaffairs.
His studies of punishment, raceand policing have appeared in
dozens of academic and popularpublications.
He has taught for 15 years inthe School of Criminal Justice
at the University of Albany,where he also received his
doctoral degree.
Dr Pate had a 25-year career inlaw enforcement, where he served

(01:04):
as a detective in viceintelligence, in narcotics and
as a SWAT operator, and alsoserving as an instructor.
Pate has a forthcoming seriesof editorials and essays
available starting next week,actually linked on Blue Sky and
available on Mediumcom on BlueSky and available on mediumcom.

(01:30):
So, without further ado, let'sget right in to this episode
with Dr Matthew Pate.
All right, so, dr Pate, I'vegot.
Look, when I have somebody onthe show that has as much
knowledge as you do on thetopics that we're going to be
talking about, my mind justspins with an endless list of
questions, because a lot oftimes and this is the case today

(01:54):
I'll have somebody on the showand when I look at what we're
going to be talking about, I getexcited because I realize I'm
about to learn a good deal aboutthis topic and I didn't even
know prior to that how badly Ineeded to learn some new

(02:14):
information, right?
So let's talk about this ingeneral and I'll let you kind of
boil things down.
What kind of challenges do weface when we get into an
escalating situation of the top1%, the billionaire elite,

(02:35):
controlling more and more ofwhat's going on, and of course,
that includes the corporations,the corporate world?
What happens to country underthose circumstances?

Speaker 3 (02:50):
A lot of things and you know we'll go through it.
There is a persistent andstrong connection between the
hyper concentration of wealthand nation or state fragility,

(03:13):
which is to say, as a nation'swealth becomes concentrated into
fewer and fewer hands.
No-transcript, and you know ifwe need a course correction,

(04:04):
however defined, you know, to atleast start talking about that.

Speaker 2 (04:07):
Right, you mentioned state fragility and that's,
admittedly, that's a term I'mI'm not familiar with.
I've not really heard that usedin conversation.

Speaker 3 (04:18):
Uh, yeah, in in academic circles, you, you hear
uh that a lot, and and it iskind of a controversial term
because some people think itimplies judgment, but in the
purest academic sense it'sreally just a measure of
stability or success.
And I think to understand thisfirst we need to talk about what

(04:41):
a state is or what a country is.
Now everybody has kind of anintuitive notion of oh yeah,
that's what a state is or what acountry is.
Now everybody has kind of anintuitive, you know notion of oh
yeah, that's, you know that'swhat a country is.
But just kind of tick through alist of things.
Most nations have kind of acollective, political or shared,
you know, social identity,social identity.

(05:04):
Most nations have a kind of awe, the people, if you will sort
of orientation about thecollective it has.
Nations or states have definedterritory.
They have a discerniblegovernment and hopefully a

(05:26):
government that enacts a systemof laws that regulate things
about the society.
And also you would expectinfrastructural things,
communication, transportation,utilities, even hospitals,
things like that, and alsoparticipation in the

(05:49):
international community,recognition by the international
community and, lastly, nationstypically have, and at various
levels, a monopoly on thelegitimate use of force and the
way to understand.
That is, the nation isn't justgoverned by a series of warlords

(06:16):
, but there is sort of onetop-down say like a criminal
justice system that can imposesanctions, and so that's what a
state is, and so fragility byextension kind of asks well,
what should a state do?

(06:36):
You know, what do you want outof your country?
And a lot of differentresearchers have taken a stab at
defining that, and one indexthat I like is called the
Fragile States Index, put out bythe Fund for Peace, and what
they have are I believe it's 12indicators, broad areas of

(07:00):
social function, social function, and 180 countries are rated
and ranked with regard to theirrelative fragility or stability,
and some of these things we'vealready talked about.
You know stuff like you know isthere a discernible government?

(07:20):
Is there a stable bureaucracy?
Right, what do individualfreedoms look like?
Press protections, does thestate have a monopoly on
violence?
But then it too can be subtlethings like nepotism and
corruption within government,susceptibility to external

(07:44):
influence, penetrability of thenational borders, plans for
succession, and then you getinto things that are resilience
measures, like what if there wasa famine or a natural disaster?
You know how resilient is thenation in responding to things

(08:06):
like that?

Speaker 2 (08:10):
So when you talk about fragility and I think I
have a fairly decentunderstanding now of what you
mean when you say fragility whenwe look at our nation as a
whole and I suppose this extendsto the world as a whole as well
, but we'll focus on the UnitedStates what does that impact?

(08:31):
What does the given fragilityof the state impact?

Speaker 3 (08:36):
in terms of our lives .
What's the Tolstoy quote about?
All happy families are happy inthe same way, but you know
unhappy families are alldifferent.
You know much damage to Tolstoy,but really that's the truth
when talking about fragilestates, because that can

(09:00):
manifest in so many differentways.
But you can talk about loss ofterritorial control or monopoly
on violence, erosion of thelegitimacy of the government to

(09:20):
make collective decisions, thelegitimacy of a government or a
regime, inability to providereasonable public services, and
that gets into things like inyour major cities is there
dependable potable water andelectricity?
Are there hospitals?

(09:41):
What does the road system looklike?
And then, lastly, it's just anability or relative inability to
interact meaningfully with theinternational community.
Okay, and we can get down to alittle granular level how that

(10:05):
manifests in the US and otherplaces.

Speaker 2 (10:13):
Yeah, it occurs to me that any time, whether it be
after a war, when the US or evena natural disaster you
mentioned infrastructure and itsimportance, and I think we have
a tendency to.
We hear it so often and we takewhat infrastructure provides us

(10:37):
for granted that we fail toremember just how central and
critical it is.
So when the United States goesin someplace again after a war
or natural disaster, the thingyou always hear first is that
we're going in to set up andrestore infrastructure.

Speaker 3 (10:58):
So can you speak a bit more on how critical
infrastructure is, in thiscontext, a very simple example
in the United States there'sbeen vast flooding in the east.
Well, the National Guard andother responders went to those

(11:21):
areas via the interstate highwaysystem.
You know that is a criticalpiece of infrastructure.
Or the fact that we hadstanding bodies of people who
had prepared job descriptionsand equipment suitable to
address various aspects of thosesituations, address various

(11:51):
aspects of those situations thatwe had a discernible kind of
playlist of.
These are the things that weneed to do to get this area
stable, get the people the helpthat they need and get them on
the road to recovery, and alarge part of humanity doesn't
have anything that looksremotely like that.

Speaker 2 (12:14):
Right, yeah, I've been to and lived temporarily in
areas that didn't have thiskind of infrastructure and in
some of those areas I mean, youdare say it's primitive.

Speaker 3 (12:32):
You really wonder how these people can eke out this
meager existence that they seemto be able to do.
That they seem to be able to dois, you know, a real testament
to the human spirit that thesepeople exist, in many instances

(12:52):
because they are, if not largelyforsaken by their political
leaders, by the world writ largeand so yeah, we are very lucky
to have the things that we do,even if they are imperfect.

(13:35):
Sure.
And, that being said, do youhave any idea where, how well we
operate along a number ofcontinuum?
And we can look back at theFund for Peace's failed state
index, failed state index and,as I say, they rate and rank 180
countries Just to give you anidea, in 2023, norway was the
least fragile or most stablecountry and Somalia was the most

(14:02):
fragile, and that, probably,you know, accords with sort of
an intuitive understanding ofwhat those places are like.
You know, no surprise.
The countries of Western Europeand Scandinavia tend to be among
the most stable.
The MENA countries, sub-saharanAfrica and in the Middle East

(14:24):
tend to be among the leaststable.
You know Syria, afghanistan,haiti, myanmar, venezuela more
fragile.
So the US?
We want to know where we arethere.
We're at number 39.
Between Poland and Barbados,the UK is about six positions

(14:52):
ahead of us.
Canada is number eight, so inthe top ten, and Mexico is about
the middle of the ranking at 85.

Speaker 2 (15:08):
Okay In terms of and I'm sure there are many things,
but just on the surface, what'ssomething that separates Canada
and the United States in that39th to 80th you?

Speaker 3 (15:21):
know there will be differences in virtually all of
the measures, but I would saythat press freedoms, the
penetrability of the politicalsystem from lobbying and outside
interests you know I could talkfor a long time about the

(15:43):
damage of Citizens United,things like that, but then we
could talk about press freedomsand, you know, consolidation of
markets and things that weprobably should talk about.
To understand that, and oftendifferences may not be visually

(16:07):
apparent you know you go toToronto or you go to Vancouver
and it may look different, butOK, seattle.
Or you know San Francisco.
Or you know, ok, I'm in a major, you know a major city that
seems to function in a fairlysimilar way.

(16:29):
You know, in either place, youknow yeah.

Speaker 2 (16:38):
So and this next one understandably, it's going to be
a touchy topic for several Idon't know how many, of course,
but I can only imagine thatthere are going to be some
listeners, some viewers that aregoing to feel a little on edge

(16:58):
about this question.
But I'm going to ask it becauseI think it's relevant and I
want to get an idea of how muchsignificance it has.
And here's the question when wetalk about state fragility, the
thing that comes to mind for meis I see, one factor that

(17:21):
contributes heavily to that iscooperation and cohesion within
that nation-state.
Is that a pretty good or?

Speaker 3 (17:31):
a fair assessment of that.
Yeah, I think the degree towhich there is a continuation of
government and even if thereare political divisions, strong
political divisions if thebureaucracy is not deeply

(17:54):
threatened by those divisions,then there's a relative
stability that exists.
To be a little glib, you mighthave just an absolute loony at
the top of the control pyramid,but if the people that make sure

(18:16):
your Social Security checkstill goes out and the mail runs
and planes don't fall out ofthe sky and food doesn't have
poison in it, if they're stillin place and functioning, then
there's some latitude at the topand that's really kind of the
core, you know, of stability andin time, poor leadership of

(18:41):
course has corrosive influences.

Speaker 2 (18:56):
Poor leadership of course has corrosive influences,
but we have a certain wellagain resilience to poor
leadership that a lot of placeswouldn't Right.
So now this leads me to thereal core of the question, and I
want to preface this by sayingI'm somebody who and I think I
live in a way that demonstratesthis, rather than this just
being words I have a fullunderstanding of the beauty and

(19:21):
the contributions that comethrough diversity right and the
contributions that come throughdiversity right.
I understand how our freedomsand that fit together and know
that that's one reason so manypeople want to come here because
of the system that we have.
My question is is there a costthat comes with that in terms of

(19:47):
state fragility?
And again, let me clarify why Iam asking Because, in my mind,
when you bring such a diverseyet incredibly polar opposite on
some religions together, thatthat cohesion and cooperation

(20:10):
factor I, in my mind, is isgoing to drop, and so that's
that's the basis of my question.
Do we well?
Is there, um, is there atrade-off?

Speaker 3 (20:20):
certainly there can be, but I don't think there's an
inherent tradeoff and actuallyI believe it's a great sign of
internal strength and the enemyand in fact feed on a culture of

(20:47):
opposition where the narrativeis they don't believe like we do
, so they can't fully beAmerican.
They don't look like we doexactly, so they can't fully be
American.
They bring customs to the USthat don't look like Norman
Rockwell, so maybe they can't be.

(21:11):
And so that serves theiridentity politics by trying to
create a limited vision of whatAmerica ought to be, what
America ought to believe and whowe ought to include, and it
also makes convenient buterroneous villains.

Speaker 2 (21:35):
It makes it easy to take your eye off the real
problem and the real uhinterests that uh are
manipulating and uh to use kindof a strong word and uh or
perhaps influencing andthreatening your interests and

(21:58):
interesting and, and, dr pate,that takes me back to something
you said earlier and correct meif I'm wrong, but I think it was
when you were talking about howyou define a state, and, if I'm
not mistaken, the verybeginning of that is defining
what you want it to accomplish,or the outcome.

(22:19):
If we bring that mindset andphilosophy into my my question,
a lot of the answer to myquestion then I think, as you're
pointing out, comes down to howwe are defining, uh, what we
want.
It is fair to say that thedefinition is changing, and so a

(22:43):
lot of the resistance that weare getting, particularly from
the far right, uh is is theydon't like the idea that the
definition is changing.
So, in terms of of the newdefinition, uh, it it shows
strength.
They only think it showsweakness because they're holding
on to the old definition.

Speaker 3 (23:07):
How much of that makes any sense to you.
You know, when you vilifypeople who largely cannot defend
themselves, particularly asmarginalized or stereotyped
groups, they make a good targetbecause they are by definition

(23:28):
kind of silenced.
But it really retards thestrength of what I think is best
about America.
You know, we, the people, Ithink is best about America.
You know, we, the people, andwe is a really broad term and it

(23:51):
has from our very beginnings,even in the colonial era, been a
very inclusive, even ifawkwardly so, enterprise and it
becomes sort of a throwawaypoint, but it's very central to

(24:19):
our identity.
The strength is in the diversityof ideas.
You know, that's really therichness of the American
experience and you know if youwant to social engineer, you
know a narrow band of that.
You know that's fine but thatgoes against the core of the

(24:43):
American spirit.

Speaker 2 (24:47):
Yes, I'm thrilled with your answer to that
question because in my mind andI didn't want to state this
until I let you speak on whereyou stood in my mind as it
applies to diversity and thefragility of the state, for any

(25:08):
trade-off there might be, it'sclearly overshadowed by the
benefit of the strength that iscreated from that diversity.

Speaker 3 (25:19):
Yeah, I mean we could look at this from kind of a
systems perspective, if you wantto, systems that are incredibly
regular.
You know, without perturbancedon't grow, they just sort of

(25:40):
spin.
But it's those, those littleperturbances, it's the, it's the
addition of the um.
Uh, you know, new ideas, thenew cultures, the new um
perspectives that challenge that, you know, uninterrupted spin,
that make us ask is this who wewant to be?

(26:00):
You know, and, uh, right, youknow, it's.
It allows the american systemto learn and become better than
it had been.
Uh, by virtue of new ideas thatare not inherently challenging

(26:20):
or critical of what some peopletake to be the status quo or
some imagined historical idea.

Speaker 2 (26:32):
Yes, you know, I don't know if you knew this or
not.
I'm a former Republican.
I left the party 2018 issue.
It was in the first Trumpadministration and having been a
Republican and grown up andlived in rural America, I know

(26:54):
very well the lens that peoplewho are Republican now or or
even a notch higher MAGARepublican now or even a notch
higher MAGA I know the lens hasa lot to do with fear.
What they see gets interpretedor filtered through that fear

(27:15):
lens which really twists it andshapes it.
My question is this the farright and in some situations I
guess you could just say theright period they think of these
changes as something that comesas the result of leadership on

(27:40):
the left or Democratsmanipulating these changes,
creating these changes, sittingdown in a board meeting, so to
speak, and saying okay, here aresome changes we're going to
implement in terms of how thecountry thinks.
From my way of thinking,leadership simply responds to

(28:03):
the way systems are changing ontheir own.
How far off am I on that?
Rather than being the creator,they're working with what
changes the shifting?

Speaker 3 (28:15):
system, I would say that it is reciprocal.
New inputs require new responsesand those come in different
sizes and proportionality, andyou mentioned, say, for instance

(28:40):
, corporate responses, newmarkets, different markets,
different products, differentideas that go along with the
change of society or theevolution of society.
And you know, as you say, theright has suggested some things

(29:06):
that I think are inherentlyunhealthy, which is and you
talked about fear, and you knowfear of a critically thinking
population is chief among them,population is a chief among them

(29:27):
, and I'm not talking aboutcritical race theory or critical
theory period, but but the uhright intellectual ability to
discern and logically, uh, youknow, and rightfully uh,
construct arguments, deconstructarguments.
You know that kind of faculty,because people who can do that
are less easily led, and so thattransmutes into this fear of

(29:53):
science, fear of this imaginedintellectual elite.
Now, I was having aconversation a few months ago
with someone who I know to be avery smart and very
professionally accomplishedperson and well-educated, and
they were talking to me aboutbeing a professor and they very

(30:15):
frankly and sincerely asked well, don't you tell your students
what to think?
Think, you know, believe me, ifI had that power over humans,
teaching criminal justiceclasses, is not where I'd throw
that lot, and so that gets intodisbelieving science.

(30:43):
Disbelieving evidence andpositioning science.
Disbelieving evidence andpositioning science.
Positioning rationality,positioning diversity as
diametrically opposed to thispolitical identity that they've
constructed.
That's more about fear andobedience than any kind of

(31:09):
robust civic participation.

Speaker 2 (31:14):
Yes, you know it's interesting that you talk about
the question that you were askedabout being a professor.
I don't think I saw this orexperienced this as much on my
undergrad, but with my graduatedegree I often encountered a
professor who had a differentframe of reference than I did

(31:36):
and to varying degrees it leakedinto their teaching.
But here's what I got out ofthat.
It made me a better student,and I'll tell you why I think
that Because if I wanted to beactively involved, they were
offering me opportunity afteropportunity to ask more

(32:00):
questions.
And you know what happened.
They're not on every questionthat I asked, but on some.
When they provided me with morecontext and background
information on it, I found myformer position had really been
in error.

(32:20):
It was not bolstered with thekind of evidence and examples
that there was.
So while a lot of people frownon that when it occurs and think
, oh my God, it's terrible,they're only teaching people
what to think if those peopleare half dead and barely there

(32:41):
in class and they're notengaging with the topic.
That's kind of my opinion onthat.
An engaged person with theability to think critically is
not going to walk out of therehaving been bringing yeah,
exactly.

Speaker 3 (32:56):
We're not turning out Marxists.

Speaker 1 (32:58):
Brainwash.

Speaker 3 (32:59):
Well, at least not as often as we usually do.

Speaker 1 (33:05):
Right, but being facetious there.

Speaker 3 (33:09):
No, if I could inculcate some great body of
knowledge, it would be ingrammar, syntax, usage, spelling
, things like that.
But to get to your point, I amoften, in those challenging

(33:32):
questions from students, forcedto defend, reconcile and maybe
alter my beliefs because theyhave found you know well what
about this and you know, okay,all right, now I have to think
about how that fits into what Ithought was supported by the

(33:55):
evidence.
And you know, that's good,Absolutely.
And I think that most oftenhappens in graduate school.
And I think that most oftenhappens in graduate school, but
I've had undergrads that youknow, ask tough questions and,
you know, made the ride homedifficult.

Speaker 2 (34:15):
Well, yes, and it's interesting that you say that as
well, because I used to providetrainings mostly for
corporations out on mostly onthe East Coast as well, although
I did hit some other states,but I was dealing with audiences
of some pretty sharp people,right, and I don't hesitate to

(34:37):
say all in terms of overall IQ.
There were many times when Ifound myself at the front of the
room in front of people whoundoubtedly had higher IQs than
I did.
I knew more about this onesliver of life than they did,
but even so, they would ask mequestions that oftentimes I

(35:01):
didn't have the answer for.
But you know what happened?
That ensured that the nextgroup I did a training for was
going to get an even bettertraining, because now I've got
the answer.

Speaker 3 (35:18):
Or at least you're prepared for the question in a
way that you weren't Right.

Speaker 2 (35:26):
I knew what to research.

Speaker 3 (35:28):
I have classes that I've taught for a decade and the
class that you know and andwhat I'll teach this spring may
not look very much like what Itaught you know four or five
years ago, because I've learned,you know, new information has
adjoined what I thought I knewabout it and, through the input

(35:51):
of students, made me change mygame, and I like that.
I don't like going into itassuming that I'm just this sage
on a stage, font of wisdom, andyou will chisel into your
tablets each syllable inviolence.

(36:11):
Yeah, the other thing is thewillingness to say I don't know,
I never thought about that.

Speaker 1 (36:28):
Sure, absolutely.
Let me get back to you.

Speaker 2 (36:31):
Right, that was always my stock.
Answer to that is you know what?
I don't know, but I'm going tofind out.
And then, usually from thatperson, if it was a situation
that I knew was going to takesome research, I'd get their
email address or something andonce I I'd promise them you know

(36:52):
what, when, when I've got thatanswer, I'm going to send it to
you because I think that's,that's an important question,
and and and that that takes alot of the.
Uh, you know a lot of the.
You know a lot of times, as I'msure you've experienced as a
professor, not all questions areasked with the intent of

(37:12):
actually learning.
Some of them are asked just tokind of put you on the spot and
embarrass you.
When I experienced somebodyasking a tough question and I
humbly just said you know, Idon't know, but that is a good
question, I'll get back with youit kind of brought the

(37:33):
temperature down in the rest ofthe room because they realized
being asked a question that Ididn't know the answer to wasn't
going to be humiliating to me.
I was going to find itinteresting.
So it's interesting how thedynamics of that work.

Speaker 3 (37:52):
I think if you'd like to see where most of the
world's pedantic, mean-spiritedgotcha questions come from, go
to an academic conference.

Speaker 2 (38:07):
Right, go to an academic conference.
I had a little delay there, butit caught up to me.
No, that's great.

Speaker 3 (38:17):
Yeah, it's pretty obvious.
When a question isn't asked ingood faith and if you give an
answer, that is disarming, thatgives you the space to move on.

Speaker 2 (38:35):
Right, oh, without question.
So let's look at then, whenwe've got the hyperconcentration
, yeah, and, and state fragility, let's go into, okay, yeah,
yeah, more of that.

Speaker 3 (38:50):
let's circle back to some of that a little deep and
and, uh, you know, sort of ourstarting thesis was that when
wealth becomes too concentratedin a society, uh, it can be
unhealthy for that society, itcan induce fragility, and I
think that that comes from threekind of discernible spheres.

(39:14):
One we could talk about is theconsolidation of production, and
you know, capitalists like totalk about the free market
economy and competition, but thereality is that the choices you
have today between trulycompetitive companies are

(39:35):
becoming more limited, greatlyreduced almost by the day in
terms of the things that you andyour family buy on a regular
basis just to live and survive.
You have mergers, buyouts,bankruptcies that have fully
changed the face of globalcommerce.

(39:56):
The global food supply industryI guess you could call it or
global food industry is a greatexample.
Four companies control almosthalf of the global commercial
seed supply.
Four companies control, I thinkit's a little over 40% of the

(40:22):
global agricultural equipmentmarket.
Uh, just can, uh, ratherleviathan companies, uh, control
most of the retail, wholesale,retail end of food delivery.
Uh, and and I'm thinking about,like Nestle, pepsico, unilever,

(40:47):
dan and General Mills,kellogg's, mars, you're talking
about 80 plus percent of theglobal food supply filters
through their footprintstructure.
But then you can look in otherareas like semiconductors.
But then you can look in otherareas like semiconductors.
20 years ago there were 25large semiconductor

(41:11):
manufacturers in the world.
Today there are three.
Healthcare that's another areathat we could talk about.
That has just been transformedby consolidation and mergers.

(41:31):
There have been, you knowsomething, over 2,000 mergers,
say, about 41 million morepeople than there were in 2000
in the US.
We have 2,000 fewer hospitals,you know.

(41:52):
And so that you know tells yousomething about service delivery
models and the profit you knowmode and yeah, and to be clear,
businesses are, you know, youknow corporations are in
business to make money and makemoney for their shop call.

(42:14):
So that's, you know.
There's no inherent evil there.

Speaker 2 (42:18):
It's just the parameters under which we allow
that happen, that, um, wherethat might induce fragility or
not be optimal for, uh, thewell-being of society yes, when
I was growing up for let's,obviously this span covers more

(42:40):
than just my growing up years,but for, let me put it this way,
for a period of 50 years of ofmy life there was a local
hospital in this little ruraltown that I'm from.
All of the doctors in town hadtheir own little offices
somewhere else in town, right,and everybody chose their doctor

(43:03):
.
Now those doctors would formost things Right.
Then, along about that 50thyear, a corporate entity came in

(43:27):
, bought that hospital, tore itdown and built a larger, nicer
hospital.
Everybody was excited oh mygosh, look at this nice facility
, look at this.
But here's what happened Withinthe first six years that

(43:48):
hospital eliminated, deletedtheir OB department.
Because the corporate entitylooked at numbers differently
than the local hospital saidlook, we have pregnant women who
come here, so we have to havean OB department.

(44:09):
The corporate entity said wedon't have enough pregnant women
who come here, so we don't needan OB department.
So just that little slice ofrural America.
And I could tell you otherchanges that have happened as
the result.
But if I go back and look atlosing that little rinky-dink

(44:30):
hometown hospital and the setupwe had, I'm not sure I can say
we've advanced because we have anicer, newer facility, because
we've lost some of what we hadbefore.
Yeah, there is this kind oforganic existence.

Speaker 3 (44:43):
When you had, you know that small town hospitals,
maybe that hospital couldn'tafford some of the equipment and
some of the specialized staffthat the newer hospital provided
?
Sure, but there's inherentlysome tradeoffs, and the OB

(45:29):
department was one where peoplewho get to decide that kind of
thing decided well, there's justnot enough of a market.
Well-being and health as amarketplace and not a human
right, you know that should beavailable to everyone, not based
on income bracket, but byvirtue of existence.
Now, of course, that's my bias,right there you know my plug
for universal health care.
Of course that's my bias rightthere, my plug for universal
health care.

Speaker 2 (45:54):
But 32 of the 33 most developed countries in the
world seem to make it workAbsolutely.
When I was 21 years old I meanliterally the day I was waiting
on my license to come in themail when I turned 21, I sold
health insurance for a couple ofyears and at that time they had
just.

(46:14):
This was 1986, they had justintroduced, like long-term
health care, nursing home.
Essentially, you know that youcould get, so that was a hot
right in Medicare supplementswere the big two.
Now, one day and this was backin the we would purchase leads

(46:37):
from the company.
I don't know, I think they werea buck, a piece or something
for each territory, we would goto buck a piece or something for
each, each territory, we wouldgo to and we literally would go
door to door with these leadsknocking right.
and one afternoon I ran intothis I suppose she was pretty
close to to 80 and she was outworking in her garden and, uh, I

(47:02):
started chatting with her and Iran into something I'd never
heard of at that point in time.
I think I would say maybe shewas from Poland.
At any rate, where she had comefrom, they had universal health
care and she introduced thisconcept to me as part of her

(47:26):
spite for what I was there forand it was unthinkable to me.
It was like are you kidding me?
The fact that you exist andlive there, you can just go to
the doctor.
And wow, I thought, what are wedoing?
You know well, I guess at thattime I was an example of what we

(47:52):
were doing.
Right, I was an agent for aninsurance company who was
profiting on the concept thatwe're not providing universal
health care and there weremultiple layers above that that
were making money.
Is that, in the end, is thatwhat it's all about, or is there

(48:15):
?
Is there another aspect andbenefit To the corporate
narrowing of things down?
I know power and money, but isthere anything else?

Speaker 3 (48:30):
If I understand.
You know, consolidation ofservices, yeah, okay, perhaps
there is a discernible benefitjust depending upon the industry
that you're talking about.
But I think any time you lookat a person's well-being and you

(48:50):
consider it in terms of amarket interest, you have gone
down, in my opinion, afundamentally unethical road
that's contrary to most of thethings that we say, we believe
as Americans.
You know in those things thatwe, the freedoms that we cherish

(49:15):
the most, you know taking careof one another in a robust sense
that you know.
How is that not prioritized?

Speaker 2 (49:30):
Right, that's a great point in terms of the conflict
there that you pointed out.
I grew up in, I guess, what youwould call a Christian family.
My parents were not.
They weren't over the top, Imean.
They just they essentially justwent to church on Sunday, right

(49:50):
, but religion wasn't discussedat any other time.
They just went to church.
But I probably although at thetime I had no idea that such a
term even existed or what itwould be called but I probably,
as a young teenager, 12, 13,maybe- in my mind became

(50:14):
agnostic, that nobody couldanswer, and I thought that for
something to be taken seriously,at least some of those
questions should be able to beanswered.
So that was kind of my thing,but I bring that up for this

(50:37):
reason.
It's something else to watchRepublicans playing so tightly
to religion, and particularlythe evangelicals, and yet the
moment they step out of thatcontext and I use context

(51:00):
intentionally because I thinkfor them it is a context, it's
not something they apply to theentirety of their life.
And and I think I'm confidentin saying that because when I
watch what they do and how theylive, they do not live in
accordance to the beliefs theyclaim to to.

(51:20):
To place such importance on howdoes that fit into state
fragility?

Speaker 3 (51:29):
Well, you know, just to pick at a number of things in
there, the conflation ofChristian identity with
Republican politics is largelyan invention of the late 70s,

(51:50):
early 80s, with the rise ofpeople like Pat Robertson, Jerry
Falwell and Ronald Reagan,where religion, frankly, could
be commoditized and used tofoster, create a dependable

(52:11):
voting bloc.
And that is in no way todisparage people's sincerely
held beliefs and their right tohold them.
But when it folds into thepolitical sphere, you know,

(52:31):
there becomes an area where youknow which is which and which is
driving which, and so I thinkwe really have to be careful
there.
And so I think we really haveto be careful there.
And, as you have indicated,there seems to be a disconnect
between many leaders on theright in terms of their personal

(52:54):
lives and decisions andsometimes personal public
personas and what you might wantif you were a conservative
Christian.
And how they reconcile that,you know, is through things like
Supreme Court appointments andSupreme Court decisions that

(53:19):
they feel match their identitypolitics.
Yeah, so there's that?
And I don't think that there is.
I don't think it would be goodfor society to not have

(53:42):
interfaith discussion and not tohave some disagreement, because
, just as we were talking aboutin education.
If I have to defend what Ibelieve, then hopefully I grow
stronger in what I believe.

Speaker 2 (54:23):
You bet, you bet, and I think to your point again.
Just coming back religions, theone thing in common that I
think could be useful to societyis that all of them acknowledge

(54:44):
some kind of higher power.
Right, they may not agree onwhat that higher power is or how
you go about serving thathigher power, or if you even
should go about serving thathigher power, but I think, as
you kind of alluded to, I thinkmaybe it kind of brings people

(55:06):
together in that way, in that atleast unconsciously, they go
okay.
Well, this is somebody that atleast acknowledges the
possibility of a higher power.
I can tell you, as an agnostic,and if you take it a step
further to just full-blownatheist, I probably create the

(55:28):
most awkward atmosphere aroundpeople who are, you know, fairly
religious.
I almost think they could dealwith a Muslim person more
effectively than they couldsomeone who's's agnostic or
atheist, because at least withsomebody, with an abrahamic god,

(55:49):
yeah, you know, you might sureyou, you, you might know enough
about the framework of theirreligion to to connect a couple
of dots and go okay, we're apart, but here's a couple of dots
that connect.
It's hard for them to find dotsthat connect with someone who's

(56:12):
agnostic or atheist.
Would it be fair to say I'mgoing to put the lower of the
boom on myself?

Speaker 3 (56:21):
would it be fair to say that, uh, atheists and and
agnostics, if they existed ingreat enough numbers, might
stress well, um, state fragility, I don't know, um, um, at least

(56:42):
in some reckonings, all systemshave, uh, you know, systems
have a point at which they willbehave differently than they
have been tipping points, Ithink you might call them.
And so you want to ask how muchinfluence that is different
than the steady state thing isnecessary to push it into a new

(57:04):
state.
I would in some ways kind ofdispute your characterization
about a higher power.
I think I would pull that backa little bit and say that I
believe that most people aresearching for some kind of
meaning or a guiding principle,something that so that we are

(57:33):
not just atomists, you knowunfettered by any, you know
overarching, you know system ofbeing, and so it's tough to say,
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (57:55):
Pardon, I would agree with that, by the way.
I would agree with that, by theway, that kind of the way
you've redefined that, because,yeah, they're searching for
meaning, not necessarily.

Speaker 3 (58:11):
As a criminologist, you know, I've talked to a lot
of public groups and and I thinkyou'll see how this connects
when a town is facing a crimeproblem, what is the go-to
solution?
Well, let's hire more cops.
Clearly, that is the solutionto hire more police officers.

(58:35):
In my career, you know, Idesigned a set of experiments to
see just how many policeofficers it would take to take a

(58:56):
fully criminogenic, which is tosay completely eaten up with
crime town and to make it whollyquixote, wholly without crime,

(59:24):
and the number that it requiredto impose the order the new
order was so astronomically highand would be so onerous in
terms of public observation andsurveillance and maintenance
that no one would want to livethere, even if you could afford
it.
You know so.
So you know it's hard to knowwhat pushes a system from one
state to another, but you know,in in our discussions of state
fragility, you know that'sthat's something that that's
right to ask.
You know what's what's too much, where's the ledge.

(59:46):
You know and we talked aboutcorporate mergers, as you know a
way that has limited optionsthat the public have in terms of
the things that they buy, eventhe things that they want or
know to want.
You know services available tothem, yes, and you know the

(01:00:11):
nature of the goods and servicesthat they're taught to value.
You know, and you know Right,and so I think that that's a

(01:00:45):
really important aspect of, youknow modern economics, modern
society and our culture isasking who controls access to
this thing that I believe I needin my life and under what terms
?

Speaker 2 (01:00:49):
Yes, I find it fascinating that when you were
talking about, when you lookedat like the crime rates and you
did this, you calculated, okay,what would it take in numbers of
police officers, and then theend result showing that no one
would want to live there.
To clarify, I think what I hearyou saying is that doing what

(01:01:13):
would be required to have nocrime going on would actually
drive away more people than thecurrent crime rate with the
number of officers thatcurrently exist.
Is that fair to say?
They would find the currentcrime rate more acceptable than
what it would take.

Speaker 3 (01:01:33):
Probably it would be the less onerous thing, I guess,
up until the point you becamethe victim.
But I think the bigger point isthat in terms of public safety

(01:02:09):
and neighborhood function andthings like that, you can't sort
of into order.
And if you look atneighborhoods that are
relatively crime-freeneighborhoods, where they do the
things that you think aboutshared experience, involvement
in each other's lives, they havea high degree of what some
social scientists callcollective efficacy, in that

(01:02:29):
they function as kind of thiswhole organic thing.
Well, that has to developinternally and you can encourage
that development and that'seasier to maintain than we're
going to bring in this thing.
That's going to be the force oforder.

(01:02:50):
That's resource intensive,heavy-handed, nobody wants to
live like that and it wouldn'tfeel like a neighborhood.
So things that are organicallygrown, you know, toward the
middle, you know, affects thecriminal justice system,

(01:03:24):
interacts with peopledifferently based on their
socioeconomic status, relativeaffluence, things like that,
where the middle class is aninteresting case because they
tend to be self-regulating in away that doesn't reflect strong

(01:03:49):
rulemaking.
And that's not to say thatthat's absent in poverty classes
or much more affluent classes.
But so don't, don't mistakethat at all.
You know that goes badlyquickly.
But what I'm saying is I have ashared economic and social

(01:04:20):
experience that tells me thatmoderation of appetites is the
most effective social strategy.
But if those around me aren'tengaged in that, I might come to
a different conclusion.
And I might be talking aboutthe poor.

(01:04:42):
I might be talking about thevery wealthy, the poor.
I might be talking about thevery wealthy and so people who
regulate themselves in the waythat we commonly think middle
class people regulate themselves.
Be that, true or not, is thereal sort of national,

(01:05:02):
endogenous force of order thatkeeps that balance.

Speaker 2 (01:05:09):
Yes, I think there's something in that that I use as
a reminder to all of my children.
I've always told them very fewthings in life will impact the
direction of your life than thepeople you spend the most time
around.
You can have your ownphilosophy, you can have your

(01:05:34):
own set of guides for goingthrough life, but if you're
constantly around people who donot, it's going to skew the
outcome.

Speaker 3 (01:05:50):
Yeah, and that holds true regardless of affluence,
and I think that's a veryimportant lesson.
One thing that I would say, andI want to be very clear about
the crime-poverty connection Oneof the reasons we see greater

(01:06:11):
crime in impoverished areas isbecause we have, as a society,
decided that it's okay for it tohappen there.
And let me explain that.
It is my belief that crimehappens where, and only where,

(01:06:34):
we think it's okay to happen.
Otherwise, we would commitsufficient social resources to
do the things, whatever theymight be, that would retard the
likelihood of crime.
Whatever that support, whateverthat enforcement, whatever that

(01:06:56):
infrastructure was necessary tosupport those people, then
crime wouldn't happen there.

Speaker 1 (01:07:09):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:07:10):
Right, that's a fantastic point, and on that I
want to say, you know, ifthere's one thing I pride myself
on, it's really being focusedon self-awareness, on on knowing
myself, with an emphasis on thenot so great things about
myself.

(01:07:30):
Right, everybody loves to knowthe great things about
themselves, but where I've grownthe most is in a direct
connection to the number ofthings I've not wanted to look
at but that I've looked at andsaid, yes, this is true about
you.

(01:07:51):
And I wanted to lead in withthis because I'm sure you're
familiar with some of the bookswritten by Malcolm Gladwell, and
I can't remember I think it wasin Blink, the example I'm going
to cite, but the discussion onimplicit bias and how it applied
to police officers and thespeed with which they would

(01:08:17):
react and pull the trigger basedon race.
I have enough self-awarenessand enough knowledge about the
human mind and specificallyimplicit bias, to know that as a
police officer, if I were to bea police officer, I would

(01:08:39):
absolutely, because of where Igrew up, be wrestling with
implicit bias, because of whereI grew up, be wrestling with
implicit bias, and it would,whether I wanted it to or not.
It would leak into myunconscious reactions and

(01:09:04):
behaviors.
How do we?
Is the answer to solve that andI already know the answer.

Speaker 3 (01:09:27):
So this is a rhetorical question is the
answer to just hire nothing butblack police officers in black
areas?
And you shake your head.
No, I know that implicit biasmaybe doesn't have the scholarly
currency that it did a fewyears ago, and so that is sort
of the predicate.
You know might weaken the wholediscussion, but what I will say

(01:09:53):
is the way that human beingsinterpret their world.
We learn about something welearn about you know.
Here's a horrible, throwawayexample we learn about a chair.
You learn what a chair does.
You learn you know how itfunctions, how you use it, and
you don't have to relearnfairness every time you see a

(01:10:15):
new thing that might fit intothat diagnostic category of
glory.

Speaker 2 (01:10:24):
And then we join new inputs to that fabric.

Speaker 3 (01:10:33):
My friends in psychology and neuroscience
probably recoil in horror atthat description.
So all due apologies, sure.

Speaker 1 (01:10:42):
Yeah, you have to you know.

Speaker 3 (01:10:43):
So all due apologies.
Sure, yeah, you have to.
What role is their discernment?
What role is their not justimplicit but explicit bias, and
what you believe about thenature of the people that, in
this case, as a police officerthat you're serving a you know

(01:11:08):
and um you know, that that getsinto a whole um.
You know we could talk manyhours about the crisis in
american policing and, uh, howwe want better police officers,
which I think as a nation, we,you know, believe we do.
You know, how much do you wantto pay to make that happen?

(01:11:32):
And that's really what thatcomes down to.
And I'm not talking aboutpaying individual officers.
Again, you know it's kind oflike crime.
You have bad cops where youdon't do the things necessary to
have good cops.

Speaker 2 (01:11:46):
Right and to clarify where I was going with that, at
least with the research thatMalcolm was using at the time.
He wrote Blink on implicit biasthe one reason fresh in my mind
as to why just hiring all blackpolice officers in that area is

(01:12:07):
not the solution becauseimplicit bias also impacted the
behaviors of black policeofficers.
In other words, the studiesshowed that the black police
officers also treated otherblacks as more potentially
dangerous as other whites.

(01:12:28):
So it's easy Sometimes I hearwhen they're interviewing
somebody after a tragic shootingor something, and just people
from the neighborhood orsomething, and I've heard a
couple of times the comments weneed more black police officers,
something.
And I've heard a couple oftimes the comments we need more
black police officers.
And I understand how that canmake sense to somebody, that
that's not privy to the research, but we know that that's not

(01:12:54):
really the answer.
We can agree that the changesof some type need to be
discovered and implemented, butI don don't think personally we
really know exactly what thosechanges are at this point, do we
?

Speaker 3 (01:13:09):
As a single determinant of a functioning
race, it's probably a very poorone, you know, while in America
we tend to want the bureaucracyto look like us.
You know, however, defined withhas sufficient reference point

(01:13:51):
to my experience that whereempathy and discretion enter the
process, that they will fall tomy desires or needs.
And that's not talking aboutmanipulation, that's just
talking about being understoodas a person in this context,
faced with whatever decisionsthat have to be made.

(01:14:12):
And so it's an infinitely kindof complex set of inputs, of
input, you know, and it allcomes down to.
You know, in the case of police, you know police officer gets
out and you want to immediatelyfeel like you're going to get a

(01:14:35):
fair shake.
And a huge portion of our nationdoesn't have that.
A huge portion of our nationdoesn't have that and in fact is
all but certain that whateverthey get out of the interaction,
they're going to come out onthe bad side of it.
And American policing has inmany regards done that to itself

(01:15:04):
.
And you know and I say that assomebody who was a cop for 25
years in a pretty hard place,but my anecdotal experience may
not generalize but we all wantto believe that when we
interface with the government,that we're being respected, that
our rights are being protectedand, on an individual level,

(01:15:29):
that we're being heard.
You know, and that takes a lotof forms yes, and you know of
the challenges that modernAmerican police have, you know.
I think those are among thegreatest American police have.

Speaker 2 (01:15:48):
I think those are among the greatest.
I won't go any deeper than thisquestion, but on the surface,
in your opinion, do you thinkpolice unions should be
endorsing any presidentialcandidate that has the ability
to impact?

Speaker 3 (01:16:05):
Absolutely not.

Speaker 2 (01:16:06):
What's your thoughts?

Speaker 3 (01:16:08):
on.
Um, okay, policing should be apolitically neutral enterprise,
even though it is comprised ofindividuals who are anything but
that.
We, we all have our ownsensibilities, proclivities,
beliefs, philosophies, you know,and that will be reflected in

(01:16:31):
our vote.
But when you start to say okay,we, as the umbrella for this
service, you know, endorse thiscandidate or that candidate,
that creates a type of seemingdisenfranchisement for people

(01:16:53):
who don't also ally with thatcandidate.
I don't think it makes goodpolitics and I think it injures
the police themselves more thananybody else.

Speaker 2 (01:17:08):
Right.
So I asked that question so wecan come back then to the higher
overarching topic of statefragility, because in a sense,
for example, when a police unionendorses a particular candidate
, you've got this overarchingentity, the union that just by

(01:17:32):
observational connection alonerepresents, whether they want
that to be the case or not,every officer that somebody sees
on the street.

Speaker 3 (01:17:43):
there's just that assumed, that assumed, you know
oh, they must agree because thisis who they endorse, just isn't
those right.

Speaker 2 (01:17:54):
So when we do, we get into that same thing.
Then with somebody like elonmusk, peter thiel, uh, jeff
bezos, when we examine statefragility, where we have these
people who own large sets of ourindustrial and agricultural and

(01:18:19):
right on down the manufacturingand retail, when they get
involved in politics, I thinkthat represents a problem, just
as the layperson on the street.
But to somebody such asyourself who has studied these
areas in depth for years, canyou take us deeper into the

(01:18:43):
challenges we can talk about.

Speaker 3 (01:18:46):
You know Musk, bezos, airtel, you know Koch family,
whoever you are, the people thatexist on the extremes of the
wealth continuum.
But if you pull that back, justsay one level to people who are

(01:19:07):
commonly on major corporateboards of directors, then that's
.
That's a place where you knowwe might want to also be
concerned.
I don't know what else Ilearned in ninth grade civics
class, but my ninth grade civicsteacher taught me a concept

(01:19:31):
called the interlockingdirectory and I don't know,
that's probably not a termthat's very common to most
people, but the basic idea isthat if a person serves on more
than one board of directors,there's this kind of interlock

(01:19:54):
between those boards because oftheir participation.
And you know, you might serve onthe board of Apple and I might
serve on the board of Apple, butthen I also serve on the board

(01:20:46):
of, you know, gm and you, whocontrol the interests of the
corporation, who don'tnecessarily have to overtly
coordinate between boards orindustries, but by virtue of
their presence a kind ofcoordination emerges.
And when you take that inconsideration of the talk that
we had about how you went from25 semiconductor manufacturers
to three, you know you went fromyou know, a dozen airlines or

(01:21:06):
more than that, down to fourthings like that then there are
fewer boards and the interlocksbecome closer.
And you also have to look atsome of the people that are
typically on these boards,people not just captains of

(01:21:31):
industry, if you will, butretired political figures,
retired military figures, folksthat have influence in the
sphere of bureaucracy, so thatthen the corporate world becomes

(01:21:52):
entwined with the bureaucraticworld in an ever-shrinking
number of players so I've alwaysthought maybe this is right,
maybe this is not, but from frommy view looking in, the most

(01:22:13):
profitable time for anypolitician is after they have
established themselves and beenprivy to the inside workings,
and then leave and become aconsultant or go to work for, uh
, some large entity.

Speaker 2 (01:22:29):
Uh, it could it be that for a lot of these guys
that the only reason they wantto get involved in politics in
the first place is to leveragethat power for later?
Who?

Speaker 3 (01:22:39):
knows what, what's contained within the
constellation of desires to bein politics.
Sure, you know, I suppose thatthere are all kinds of
motivations and goals you knowthat we might talk about.
But yeah, clearly it's anon-ramp to a post office

(01:23:00):
affluence for a lot of people,apolliphus affluence for a lot
of people, and they are in thoseboard positions because of
their prior.
You know, public service, andthere's nothing inherently wrong
with that and there might evenbe a public good in that,
depending upon the industry andyou know other factors and you

(01:23:24):
know other factors.
But interlocking directoratescan complicate board members'
fiduciary duties, can createantitrust issues amenable to
price fixing.
Price fixing, you know, and I'mnot saying that an interlocking

(01:23:47):
directorate is what caused eggsand gas to go up.
But it's not like one supplierof eggs and gas, eggs or gas
immediately said, oh, we're justjacking it up, and nobody else
played along, you know.
And so there is this kind ofthere is a system that has

(01:24:08):
concentrated power in an economythat has concentrated
production and that then flowsinto direct political influence.
You know, again thinking aboutCitizens United, that basically

(01:24:34):
opened up a floodgate of moneyinto American politics, and
often industrial groups,corporate associations, will
supply language to members ofCongress that you then later see

(01:24:55):
almost verbatim in bills thatare offered, and so they have a
very position to strongly guidepublic policy.
That then introduces an elementof fragility.

Speaker 2 (01:25:38):
Yeah, when you mentioned the airlines, you know
you said one time there were 12different airlines and now
three or four.
The one that, uh, immediatelysurfaced in my mind is you know,
we I think most people look atthat and and very easily come to
the conclusion that, wow, we've.
We've got far less choice.
But something that's not quiteas obvious or as visible when

(01:26:03):
that happens is we've also gotless leverage.

Speaker 3 (01:26:07):
That's right.
If you know, I don't like abrand of something.
I now only have so many otheroptions and if you're talking

(01:26:34):
about food, those options may befalse options because you know
both brands that I like may beor, deciding between, might be
owned by the same company thisdr pate was.

Speaker 2 (01:26:41):
It's been several years ago, um, I went into a
location where they had both akentucky fried chicken and a
taco bell, right, and I go inand I I order my drink and I I
go up to get my drink and Iremember looking at the, the
choices available, I rememberthinking, well, I guess taco
bell and and kentucky friedKentucky Fried Chicken have

(01:27:04):
chosen to carry Pepsi products.
Well, I didn't know at the timethat Pepsi owned Taco Bell and
so it was the illusion of choiceor that's how I perceived it in
that nobody else here,including Kentucky Fried Chicken
and Taco Bell, they didn't evenhave a say in the drink because

(01:27:29):
they are effectively Pepsi, andwe see instances of that same
kind of thing more and more insociety.

Speaker 3 (01:27:40):
You know, and just the fact that you had a Taco
Bell right beside a KentuckyFried Chicken, which would
seemingly be two competitors.

Speaker 2 (01:27:50):
you know different types of food, you know what
have you, but nonetheless twodifferent restaurants, right you
know, acting actually in kindof a symbiotic way through the,
you know the presence of thePepsi ownership Right right,

(01:28:11):
yeah, I remember my firstthought was what an odd
combination kentucky friedchicken and taco bell.
Well, it, it it was.
It was never meant to be alogical, it was just that they
had this.
They'd looked at the numbersand said here are two, uh, fast
food restaurants we should own,and hey, in some locations like
these small rural, let's justmerge them and offer both and

(01:28:35):
sell a ton of our product, pepsi.
Because yeah, so yeah, is thatwhat we are looking at in terms
of if this is not reigned insome way, is it just going to be
more and more?

Speaker 3 (01:28:54):
reigned in some way.
Well, is it just going to bemore and more?
Uh not.
Not that I take a lot of deepmeaning from uh uh silly movies,
but you think about uh uhdemolition man, where all
restaurants had become taco bell, you know.
Or uh idiocracy, where you have,you know, brondo, you know, and
, and so they've become sort ofthese state products.
You know, and I don't thinkwe're headed down that road.

(01:29:17):
But choice, apparent choice,artificial choice, you know,
these are some things that wehave to think about, to

(01:29:53):
concentration of control andconcentration of wealth, which I
believe the evidence shows,fewer media companies, or media
companies that are owned bysomeone with a very strong
political agenda.
You know that, that that seemsto have a distortive effect, you

(01:30:14):
know.
And so when you have then thepresence of oligarchs, you have
the presence of nepotism, whoare allowed to penetrate into
this system that doesn't havethe balance that we would like
to believe.
That it does, you know youstart to have problems.
That it does, you know, youstart to have problems.
And we talked about religionbefore.

(01:30:35):
You know where.
Very often, you know, a partyand not just in the US will
invoke a state religion or a defacto state religion and
conflate that with patriotism.
And really that's not aboutfaith or religiosity, that's

(01:30:57):
about a form of control andboundary maintenance in the
population.
It also, then, our side has themoral high ground than any
enemies that we identify becomeeasier to demonize.

Speaker 2 (01:31:24):
That's why this hyper-concentration of wealth is
such an interesting topic forme.
I've always kind of had I'veapplied this more in the area of
psychology, but now I see howeasily it fits into this
category as well.
I've always kind of had thisphilosophy of the highest frame

(01:31:46):
determines the game and meaning.
I'll give you an example ofthat.
I was in the Middle East in1993, and I went to a pizza hut
I think this was in Dubai, if Iremember correctly, and
everything you know pizza hut.
Everything looked the same.
What you could order looked thesame.
So I ordered a large beef andmushroom pizza and everything

(01:32:13):
going on is exactly like I seeit here in the United States,
until I took that first bite andI immediately recognized the
difference.
The cheese used was goat cheeserather than, you know, from a
cow, which is a much sharpercheese, which I found
interesting.

(01:32:33):
It was different, but it wasactually quite good.
But my point is there was ahigher frame in this instance
than corporate Pizza Hut.
The highest dictating frame wascultural and religious faith

(01:32:54):
and what the Musk, bezos, thiel,when we look at these guys as

(01:33:20):
possibly and maybe already, butat the very least possibly and
eventually reaching the pinnacleof the highest frame, and I
mean even higher than, say, theUnited States Supreme Court, in
that they are essentiallymanipulating and driving the

(01:33:42):
decisions and rulings of theUnited States Supreme Court.
Are we?
You said earlier we're notthere yet we're not, but how
close are we to situations likethat?
Two points One.

Speaker 3 (01:33:54):
to circle back to your cheese.
If you've ever been to theWorld of Coke in Atlanta, one of
the sections that they have iswhere you can try products that
are not available in the US butare very successful in other
foreign markets but are verysuccessful in other foreign
markets.

(01:34:14):
And you find just how broad,you know, the human palette and
preference is.
You know, and so for a bigmultinational to be amenable to.
You know, local preferences.
You know smart business.
You give them what they're usedto, what they would like in the
configuration that you candeliver, you know, as your

(01:34:36):
product.
But to go to your question, oneof the greatest dangers I see
is the creeping privatization ofgovernment function and you
know, as a criminologist I'mparticularly sensitive to how

(01:34:58):
this has happened in corporatecorrections, Fully
corporate-operated prisons,private prisons, private
immigration detention centers.
But it's not just that, it'sprivate probation and parole

(01:35:23):
services have become a thing.
The phone systems in jails andother correctional facilities
become a profit center.
The food services, the laundryand linen services, things that
were once the purview of thestate, have now been privatized
to connected vendors.

(01:35:45):
Corporate corrections industryis involved in policymaking and
support of candidates.
It is no coincidence thatget-tough legislation in the 80s

(01:36:06):
and 90s mirrored the rise ofprivatized correctional
facilities.
You know, thus ensuring thatmore and more things were
criminalized, criminalized at agreater level, thus ensuring
success.
You know, downstream of theproduct that they had to offer,

(01:36:34):
the product that they had tooffer.
And I know some people are goingto say, you know, that's an
awfully jaundiced or cynicalview, but the data certainly
support that view, however youmight want to characterize it.
And we see this also ineducation.
You know, in Arkansas, herewe're struggling with private

(01:36:59):
school vouchers and the problemsthat that creates.
But it's not just, you know,giving people wealthy enough to
send their children to privateschools a rebate for that.
It's things like standardizedtesting services, learning

(01:37:19):
management systems, which is howonline education is delivered.
Campus bookstores are now, youknow, run by, you know, barnes,
noble or whomever, and so whatwe see is an increasing

(01:37:41):
privatization of formerly publicfunction, and you can see how
this manifests in things likethere's been a 50-year decline
in public wealth and aconcomitant growth in private

(01:38:02):
wealth, particularly at the verytop end of the wealth
distribution.
So that gets to the handful ofthe handful of people that you
know we have been talking about,and nearly all of this is
traceable to the early 80s.

(01:38:24):
You know phrase that waspopularized run government like
a business.
Well, that, you know that wasthe soft on ramp.
It's not really runninggovernment like a business.
Well, that you know that wasthe soft on-ramp.
It's not really runninggovernment like a business,
right, that was more of aprojection of the true long game
intent, which is to rungovernment as their business.

Speaker 2 (01:38:50):
Yes, when I was in college, I worked at a funeral
home and at that time,particularly in the rural areas
and and uh, the town I grew upin is surrounded by other rural
communities, small ruralcommunities every funeral home
was right.

(01:39:10):
It was owned by an individual,right, they'd gone to mortuary
school and they established abusiness.
Maybe it was a father and son,maybe another partner, but it
was just kept on the local level.
While I worked there, almost ona daily basis, they were being

(01:39:37):
inundated with people wanting tosit down and talk to them about
buying the business.
But they weren't otherindividuals.
They weren't other people whohad just graduated mortuary
school.
They weren't other people whohad just graduated mortuary
school.
They were big corporations.
Because at the time when Iworked there, particularly

(01:39:58):
because it was a rural communityand it was just a member of the
community that owned it Ifthere was a family who didn't
really have the means to go inand write a check right off the
bat, he'd work with them.
He'd say, okay, if you can,that's gone.
And that's gone because now,while it appears that there are

(01:40:23):
still all of these ruralindividual funeral homes, the
building hasn't changed.
Everything looks the same,except they're all owned in this
area by one company.
The deals are gone.
There's no more.
Pay me what you can.

Speaker 3 (01:40:40):
You know another area we see this is in property
ownership, rental propertyownership In particular.
There's been a hugeconcentration of ownership in
the American rental market overthe last decade or so.

(01:41:01):
Again, it's kind of that localexample where you might have a
couple who has an apartmentbuilding, or a couple or a
handful of rent houses, thingslike that.
That's no longer kind of thedominant model and that places
the relationship between therenter and the owner in a
fundamentally different.

(01:41:21):
You know light and you know,and that goes to kind of core
problems that extend, you know,from this mindset.
You know where you get thedisenfranchisement of labor,
where minimum wage stays what ithas been for a very long time,

(01:41:42):
weakening of environmentalcontrols and just a general
subversion in many ways of thepublic good subversion in many
ways of the public good.
You know worker protections.
You know, again, renter'srights, things like that.
That.

Speaker 2 (01:42:02):
It's kind of a mission creep spurred by
privatization yes, when I, whenI left the navy oh gosh, almost
25 years ago and I and I cameback to the community that I I

(01:42:24):
had grown up in and, as I wasgrowing up as as was just part
of life here, uh, I hunted andfished, right, and I've been,
I've been gone a quarter of acentury and I came back and all
of the places that I used tofish and hunt, I could no longer
fish and hunt because corporateentities had come in and
purchased all of these hugefarms that the landowners used

(01:42:48):
to say, oh yeah, just just letme know what day you're going to
be there, just so I know you'rethere and you, yeah, you can
hunt or fish.
That's pretty much gone now.
Uh, so, as a result, I haven'thunted or fished in years
because I wouldn't even know whoto begin to contact.
Ask, and they'd probably sayhell, no, don't, don't come on
on that land.

Speaker 3 (01:43:08):
You know, and this is a rabbit trail that we could go
down, uh, for a long time.
But one of one of the thingsthat happens as a result of of

(01:43:31):
that kind of development is thecommercialifferentiated series
of interstate exits that havethe same 15 or 20 business
franchises all along the way.
And so I think that that, froma cultural standpoint, poses a

(01:44:12):
kind of danger to the Americanidentity, because it makes us
consumers almost as the firstthing, and you know, and then
members of a unique community.
Second, and you know that mayoverstate, but that's something
that I noticed and you know.
I think that that's one of thegreat things about the US is
being able to have those uniqueexperiences you know, in those
tens of thousands of towns thatyou know may function, sort of

(01:44:37):
as little towns tend to functionbut have a uniqueness and a
character that's worthcelebrating, worth preserving.
But when you introduceeconomies of scale, those
businesses just don't thrive andyou get what we get Right.

Speaker 2 (01:45:07):
I've always kind of looked at a lot of what you've
been talking about today, kindof the metaphor that I've used
in day-to-day life.
We all have kind of got theseestablished norms in our mind of
what certain things cost.
For example, you can go into aconvenience store and you can

(01:45:30):
get a big fountain drink, maybefor between 99 cents and a buck
and a half, right, that's justkind of wherever you go.
If you go in a restaurant andget the uh order, the same thing
, maybe it's 275, three dollarsfor a cook.
You know, we, just we kind ofknow this is kind of what you
can expect.
The exception to that or it'snot the only exception, of

(01:45:52):
course but if you take yourfamily to disney world, for
example, the moment you walkinto that gate and for the
length of time that you are inthere, none of your previous
expected norms apply, right they?
It's a new ballpark with newrules, and if you want to get a

(01:46:14):
large Coke, it may be 11 bucks,12 bucks, right Now.
Am I right in to think that youcan kind of use that as to how
to understand as fewer and fewercorporate entities gobble

(01:46:36):
things up?
We become more of like a WestCoast to East Coast theme park,
in that you come into the gatesand your previous accepted norms
for prices no longer apply.
This makes me think of twothings norms for prices no
longer apply.

Speaker 3 (01:46:51):
This makes me think of two things.
You know it was George Bush, Iguess, maybe in 96, was it that
was on the spot because hecouldn't tell you what a gallon
of milk cost, you know.
And that speaks to this kind ofdetachment that you know, the
one percenters if you will havefrom the norms of everyday life.

(01:47:13):
And I get asked when I'mtalking about this kind of thing
, I get asked a lot always beenpeople who were really rich.
You know who influencedgovernment.
How is this any different?
And the difference is scale.

(01:47:36):
The robber barons of York arepeasants compared to the new
class of centibillionaires.
They have so much money we hadto have a different term to
describe the amount.
You know I think Robert Reiftalked about this a few days ago

(01:48:03):
, said that you know the 12richest people in the US control
over $2 trillion worth ofwealth and if they were a
country, they'd have the 11thlargest GDP in the world, ahead
of Brazil.
12 people.

(01:48:25):
So they have this outsizedability to mold and influence
the economic and politicalsystem to ways that are
advantageous to them.
You know, and you know we weretalking about, you know, kind of

(01:48:45):
the malleability of rulesearlier.
We're sort of circling, thatit's.
You know very quickly and youdon't have to be very affluent
to know this that criminaljustice processes that you're
going to be subject to arelargely dependent on your

(01:49:09):
relative affluence Whether youget strict letter of the law,
sort of formal treatment, or, ifconditions loosen up for a
variety of reasons, being ableto hire a better lawyer instead
of a public defender, having thesocial, economic, political

(01:49:35):
connections that minimize yourliability.
And that extends everywhere,everywhere, when you're talking

(01:49:55):
about the truly wealthy peoplein the world.
I saw some kind of ridiculousBuzzFeed article a while back
about sort of outrageous thingsthat people who had worked for
billionaires saw and I had neverconsidered it.
But the one thing that's morevaluable to to that strata than

(01:50:16):
anything else is their timemanagement.
they don't open their own doors,they don't drive themselves
anywhere they don't put theirown food they may not buy their
own clothes, that they have alegion of people who facilitate
their life out of the mundanethings that the rest of us labor

(01:50:42):
to have enough money to havethe luxury to do.
Sure, there's a thing that kindof comes out of that when you
have that level of access, thatlevel of resources and access,

(01:51:05):
you come to quickly learn thatnot many rules attach to you.
You know, save for the onesthat you make for yourself.
Not many rules attached to you.
Yeah, save for the ones thatyou make for yourself.
And we're seeing that certainlyin a lot of American political
theater lately.
And on a certain level you kindof say, okay, why does that

(01:51:31):
matter?
Let them buy a gigantic yacht,let them buy, you know whatever
a rocket trip.
What does it matter?
How does that hurt me?
Well, it does and it doesn't,you know, on a certain level.
But as we've talked aboutmanipulation of public policy,

(01:51:55):
and you know, and this strata ofpeople tend to be kind of
authoritarian in their dealingsand so when they're integrated
into the bureaucracy, even atthe highest level positions,
they don't have a decision or alife matrix that mirrors common

(01:52:16):
people sufficiently to trustthem, in my opinion with.
You know important public policy, you know directives, you know,
just to talk a little moreabout it, you know, as somebody
who's trained, either unclear ordon't seem to fly.

(01:52:37):
You know, and you know, as Isaid, it's normlessness, but it

(01:53:05):
might also be thought ofderangement or even an
insatiable will.
You know, the malady of theinfinite is what Durkheim called
it.
And Durkheim said let me getthis right.
One does not advance when onewalks toward no goal, which is

(01:53:29):
the same thing when his goal isinfinity, which is the same
thing when his goal is infinityIn a society which, fastening us
in its image, fills us withreligious, political and moral
beliefs that control our actions.
So you have these people thatlive in this anomic reality of

(01:53:59):
no fetter and then suddenly theyare, you know, charged with
creating or guiding publicpolicy.
That becomes a problem.

Speaker 2 (01:54:14):
Yes, and I think on just the man on the street, the
man and woman on the street.
As I pay attention to thethings that people host on this
topic, what I see more oftenthan not, I think the problem
they have that's even biggerthan just this person has that

(01:54:37):
much money is, is that part ofhow they've acquired this much
money has come through bendingthe rules or creating new rules.
So I I I get this sense that if, if people were acquiring that

(01:54:58):
much, using the same laws, samerules, same guidelines that
everybody else operates under,that there'd be more people
saying you know what, fairenough, um, you, you may or may
not have had differentadvantages in life, but at least
you're using the same rulesthat apply to me.

(01:55:19):
So good on you now.
Clearly, that wouldn't beeverybody's feeling, but there
would be more people thinkingthat way I.
But when people look and say,look, this guy didn the rules,
the laws that existed werestifling his company's growth,
so he went in and got the lawchanged.

(01:55:42):
Now the argument they have, ofcourse, is that it was done
legally right, it was legal.
Done legally right, it waslegal.
But I think the fact thatmorality and ethics are not part
of this discussion or theprocess.
We see that's where the man andwoman on the street have had it

(01:56:05):
up to here.
My question to you, dr Patewhat solutions are there, or are
there really not any big,impactful solutions at our
disposal there?

Speaker 3 (01:56:21):
has always been a disparity in wealth in uh larger
organized societies and uhlarger organized societies, and
sometimes that negativelyimpacts the vast majority of
people and sometimes it's lessso.

(01:56:42):
It's not that there aren'tpeople in you know we talked
about Norway who have a greatdeal of money.
Certainly they are, but theyare not allowed, through
lawmaking and a system oftaxation, to have outsized

(01:57:03):
influence.
Their political structure isless amenable to those kinds of
corrosive forces and when youhave a system, as we have in the
US, where it is virtually payto play in terms of policy, you

(01:57:24):
have to expect what we get.
I say this a littletongue-in-cheek, but pretty
quickly we're closing on an eraof lords and peasants and

(01:57:47):
certainly it will not resemblefeudal Europe and there won't be
land divided into fiefdoms, butthere will be corporate
fiefdoms.
There already are corporatefiefdoms and you know, you're

(01:58:07):
right.
They bent policy to help, youknow, their company succeed,
which is a rational thing to do.
Why wouldn't you?
You know this law makes itharder for me to make a profit.
Let's change that law.

(01:58:37):
Your factory or the rivercatches on fire or species are
made to, you know, uh, you knowkilled into extinction.
You know things like that, um,you know, and then you start
have to.
You have to have, uh, as yousuggested, more ethical
balancing tests.
What do we really want aspeople and who do we really want
to be as a people?

(01:58:57):
And I think history wellsupports that.
Great fortunes are seldom madewithout great exploitation, even
if that exploitation is notreadily visible.
You'll notice in Walmart that30 years ago had a legion of

(01:59:24):
Made in America signage allthroughout the stores and wore
that as a great badge of courage.
You don't see that anymore.
One, the American worker wastoo expensive, but that chain
has figured other ways tosubvert that.
But two, the exploitation offoreign factories is easier to

(01:59:50):
hide of foreign factories iseasier to hide.

Speaker 2 (01:59:59):
I was watching a podcast last week sometime where
Mark Cuban was the guest, andthere was a comment that Mark
made that really stood out.
It really jumped out at me assomething that, boy, this would
be great to see in so many otherpeople billionaires namely.
Somebody was asking him about acouple of different

(02:00:23):
opportunities where there wasbig money to be made, and the
fact that he didn't get involved, and there was more to it, but
part of his comment and, I guess, explanation, if you will, as
to why he didn't he said he goeshow much money do I need, you

(02:00:45):
know?
So he recognizes that, sure, hehas the acumen and the skill to
make even more, but hisemphasis was on all the time
that he spends with his kids now, and that that's where his real

(02:01:06):
joy comes from, and he's gotenough for countless lifetimes
to be able to do that.
So his point is how much moredo I need?
I'm doing what I want to do.
The opposite end of that, though, is somebody like a Musk or a

(02:01:26):
Bezos who says there's neverenough.
If $266 billion is good, thenlet's double it and go over $500
billion.
That's the mindset that is, Ithink, to me what's going to get
us in trouble, and that's amindset, I think that is one

(02:01:49):
that is absent the moral andethical aspects.
I don't know that.
I won't speak for Mark.
I don't know that his commentwas because he's looking at it
from a moral or ethicalstandpoint.
I think, at the very least,though, it's just one of those

(02:02:10):
how much money does a guy haveto have before he says you know?

Speaker 3 (02:02:16):
another comment, which essentially was when you
don't see anybody above you,then reality becomes distorted
and perhaps your passions turninward and self-destructive.

(02:02:41):
But I think that's where theyare.
There's not an upper limit.
No, I don't know how youaddress that.
I know how you address that ona policy level you go back to
Eisenhower era, 80% tax bracket,an era when we didn't quite

(02:03:08):
have as many billionaires.
Because I am and this is justmy ethics and moralizing, but
I'm not certain that a nationcontrolled by and populated by,
you know, a couple of thousandbillionaires is necessarily a
moral good, interjecting myvalue system in it, and so what

(02:03:37):
we end up with are far fewerMark Cubans who look about or
Melinda Gates.
This was enough.
So let's start doing some otherthings, you know, and I think

(02:03:59):
that that probably takes anemotional maturity that people
given to authoritarian decisionmaking don't possess right, and
one.

Speaker 2 (02:04:13):
Coming back to Mark, here's another comment that he
made that I, I think, reallygives us a window, a look into
his honesty about where he'scoming from.
Uh, you know the the pharmacy,right, that, yeah, he's.

(02:04:33):
Um, I think he said hepartnered with somebody else,
but essentially it's.
It's a place where a lot ofamericans can go find the drug
that they take and get it for ifthey don't have insurance.
I can go there and get it muchcheaper.
But he, he volunteered this.
Nobody in this interview it'snot like they prided out of him.
He said I just want to make apoint.
He said I, I didn't do this forsome purely altruistic reason.

(02:05:00):
I, I had I had done the numbers, realized that I could do this
for a lot less and still makesome money, and, and so that's
what I did.
So I, I'd like that.
I, you know that that's notsomething we're going to see
from Bezos or deal or or.
It tends to be that they'reobscuring the realities of

(02:05:23):
what's going on, whereas Mark islike, hey, look, yeah, I.
Part of this is that I couldmake some money.
But in doing so, what broughthis attention to it in the first
place was a need that peopleless fortunate than him had, and
and that gets it.

Speaker 3 (02:05:45):
Yeah, yeah, I mean that that gets into um, what do
you want your impact to havebeen?
What is your legacy?
And that gets complicated whenyou start talking about terrific
fortunes.
The Sackler family is a perfectexample.

(02:06:07):
You can't go to a museum in amajor city that doesn't have a
Sackler Gallery or wing.
They were tremendous patrons ofthe art that advanced art in a
way that few families of themodern era ever have.

(02:06:28):
And they also made that fortuneby poisoning the American
public with an opioid epidemicthat they knowingly and

(02:06:49):
willfully put upon thepopulation.

Speaker 2 (02:07:15):
Yes, yes, as we kind of wrap things up here, I think
it's kind of thing we can runout and do tomorrow or in the
next five years to change this.
And here's why I say that'salmost comforting.
Here's why I say that's almostcomforting, because to the
degree that a society believesthere is a magic bullet and that

(02:07:41):
nobody's doing it, to that samedegree there's going to be an
unease and an angst and afrustration about it.
And so I guess, looking at itfrom a psychological perspective

(02:08:01):
, sometimes in life and I'm notsaying that this is necessarily
the approach we should take onthe entirety of this subject,
but there are some aspects ofthis that sometimes you just get
to a place where you have toaccept that this probably isn't
going to change in your lifetime.

(02:08:23):
That doesn't mean you shouldn'tbe part of a forward-pressing
process to enact a change atsome point.
But I think more isaccomplished when the people
involved are willing to workhard without expecting that the
returns come in their lifetime.

Speaker 3 (02:08:45):
Small policy moves can have big influence and
that's how we move the nationforward.
I am probably easily describedas some big government leftist,

(02:09:10):
but that's because I have afaith in the bureaucracy and the
continuation of that.
You know the small-minded rulefollowers who you know safeguard
us from abuses, and you knowabuses and you know make, make

(02:09:42):
the.
You know keep the interstatesrepaired and make certain that
the back of that Taco Bell is infact clean, or what?
Yeah, that regulatory influenceand then provision of service,
which is the true goal ofgovernment.
That's where my faith lies.
I have to feel that the Americanpeople will eventually get

(02:10:06):
enough of this.
The MAGA era is a magic freakand a lot of people are still
impressed at the rabbit that'scome out of the hat, but that

(02:10:31):
will end soon enough and I doubtthat there is a second person
that rises from those ashes,because the more reasonable
people in the Republican Partyknow what kind of a mule they've
hitched their wagon to anddon't want to do that anymore.

(02:10:52):
Because, for you know, acentury, uh, republicans and
democrats were able to governtogether, drawn, you know, along

(02:11:16):
some you know line of moralityor religious order, because
that's not how you govern in a,you know, a free society.

Speaker 2 (02:11:32):
Yeah, I don't think there's anything that you've
said today that I agree withmore completely than the
statement that you don't thinkthey'll.
They'll be a second version ofdonald trump come along.
My position has long been thatthis has been the result of a
perfect storm, with a very rareindividual coming along at the

(02:11:55):
right time with just the rightpathologies, if you will, and
the idea that he could die andsomebody just like him who can
do the same.
And I think to your point or Ithink this is something you

(02:12:18):
would also agree with that's notto say that there aren't people
out there as rotten as DonaldTrump.
It's just saying they don'thave that right combination to
be able to pull off what DonaldTrump has pulled off in the last

(02:12:40):
eight to ten years.

Speaker 3 (02:12:41):
I absolutely agree, and the other thing that we
can't ignore is Donald Trump inmany ways is a media
construction.
He is a product.
You know he is a product,that's been allowed to free
associate and run his mouth tothe detriment of the nation in

(02:13:03):
my opinion, but I don't thinkthat the media has the stomach
to make another one of those, atleast not in the short term,
because it's ultimately bad forbusiness, if nothing else.

Speaker 2 (02:13:28):
Oh, you bring up a great point For all of the
decisions that Elon Musk hasmade in his life business
decisions that have put him inthe position that he's in now
billions and billions, tens ofbillions, hundreds of billions
of dollars thing that's relatedto business that I don't think

(02:13:54):
he could even approach is makingmsnbc, cnn, uh, nbc, abc.
He couldn't make them theamount of money that donald
trump has made them, because onehe's just not and believe me
what I say interesting aboutdonald trump I don't mean right,

(02:14:17):
he's not as fascinating, rightyeah
right, sure, sure they're,they're.
They're not going to make thehundreds of millions of dollars
they've made running episodes ofinterviews with Elon Musk.
They're just not.
And I think Trump I thinkthat's one thing that he's very

(02:14:42):
much aware of and holds overeverybody's head is that, while
there may be people who farexceed him in intelligence and
every other area, they justcan't put a finger on what that
magical element about him is andwhat he's able to do in terms

(02:15:04):
of the media.
They know they can't do itthemselves, and so they're tied
to him.
They're tied to him at least inthat way.
They need him in terms of theparty remaining as vivacious and
bold and in your face asthey've become you know, for

(02:15:30):
better or worse, he has been avery effective standard bearer.

Speaker 3 (02:15:36):
You know you have to give him that.
Yes, he has been a verysuccessful product.
You know, even if the productyou bought isn't the one you
thought you were buying, he hasnonetheless been incredibly
successful.
He has nonetheless beenincredibly successful and so you
know certainly credit wherecredit is due in that Now we do

(02:16:14):
have to interrogate the thingsabout him that are appealing to
such a large percentage of thepopulation.
Why are they appealing and whatdoes that say about that
segment of the population andtheir vision?

Speaker 2 (02:16:22):
for america, you know .
But but yeah right, a couple ofthings come to mind on that.
He he's.
I've looked at him as, uh, thecabbage patch kid of politics,
right, there was a time whenpeople were lined up and
fighting each other to get intothe store to get a cabbage patch
kid.
Now you can get you know,nobody's fighting over a cabbage

(02:16:47):
patch kid anymore, and therewill come a time when nobody's
fighting over Donald Trumpanymore either.
I think his true test as itfits into what you've so
brilliantly shared with me todayon this whole topic of kind of

(02:17:12):
the corporate and billionairetakeover of our economy, of the
United States as a whole it'sgoing to be interesting to see
how he is able to manage theserelationships with Musk, thiel,
bezos.
Right now, of course, they'recatering to the one thing that

(02:17:33):
assures success with him, atleast for a while, and that's
his ego.
The second thing they'rebringing is money.
When you can flatter him andprovide him massive financial
resources, you have his ear Upuntil the point he feels like

(02:17:53):
you've stabbed him in the backand, from what I've seen the
last eight years, once he'smoved you to the shit list,
that's probably where you willremain.

Speaker 3 (02:18:05):
People who are narcissistic tend to demand
great loyalty without awillingness to extend it.
You know, and, and so that'sabsolutely what we see right
here.
I think I would add a thirdposition to the switch uh, he
will have no use for you whenyou have upstaged him.

(02:18:26):
Uh, you know, so there's.
So there's that too.
Am I concerned about the nextfour years?
Yes, very much so, you know,for a whole constellation of
reasons.
But again, I just hope that theworkaday people that you know

(02:18:48):
keep the wheels turning areallowed to stay in place, and I
believe that they're.
You know ridiculous things likegetting rid of the Department of
Education.
That's not going to happen.
You know it sounds good and itpanders to a segment of the

(02:19:08):
population that's been taught tofear educated people, you know,
and taught to fear science andsee it as a threat.
You know that's sloganeering,that's propaganda, that's, you
know, a glittering promise, butthat's not reality, because

(02:19:31):
giant bureaucracies like thatsupport important functions
throughout the nation at almostevery level.
You know, yes, you know, a long, long time ago, when Bill
Clinton was governor of Arkansas, first term governor of

(02:19:51):
Arkansas Clinton was governor ofArkansas, first-term governor
of Arkansas he did some thingsthat raised it was either the
license fee or the registrationtax on vehicles and that caused
such a moral outrage that onething, that he was defeated by
frank white, the next uhelection cycle.

(02:20:14):
You know so um.
The american public can bewildly fickle over very small
things and uh you know, you knowum so, um, I I have faith in
most of us to keep the shipright.

(02:20:35):
And one thing I would say,because I've talked about, just
to circle back, talked aboutfragility a whole lot today and
what that looks like, and Ithink it's important to say you
know, is the United States,according to many of these
rankings, the most stablecountry on Earth?

(02:20:56):
Probably not.
But is the United States on thedoorstep of becoming human?
No, no, and that's just notgoing to happen.
No, and that's just not goingto happen.
And so it's not about guardingagainst some kind of abject

(02:21:20):
failure, but finding a way to bea better version of the nation

(02:21:41):
that we could be, that we knowis out there, that is more
inclusive, that doesn't look atdifference as a threat, that
values education, that does thethings necessary to you know,
make neighborhoods crime-free,no matter where they exist, you
know, or you know, to guardagainst as much harm as possible

(02:22:03):
.
And so you know, that's where myfaith lies and that's where I
think we have to focus ourefforts in being a better
version of a pretty great place.

Speaker 2 (02:22:25):
I agree with so much of what you just said.
One thing I might add to thatis one of the reasons I guess I
do agree with you in that notall of these horrible things
that Donald Trump has said thathe's going to do are going to

(02:22:46):
happen.
Is this One reason our largesect of our society believes
those things are going to happenis because the media has
reinforced those thingshappening, and the media
reinforced those thingshappening because those were the
stories.
They were salacious the most.

Speaker 3 (02:23:08):
Uh you know they were engaging and you know, here
again we circle back to mediaconsolidation, and while things
like your podcast and you knowthousands of other outlets that
you know give a deep explorationto social issues are out there,

(02:23:29):
um, you know, the places wherepeople traditionally got their
news, uh are not as balanced inthe way that maybe they once
were, and and so you know thatthat has changed the economy of
news, uh, and you know, yeah, oh, tremendously.

Speaker 2 (02:23:53):
I one I don't know who was right off the top of my
head, but I recently had a gueston and, and I'm not sure the
context we were talking aboutthis in, but we, we shared
stories about how, for example,I was born in 66, so I grew up
in the 70s for the most part,and in the 70s everybody in the

(02:24:14):
nation had the same, pretty muchsame, very few television
channels to choose from.
So during this periodeverybody's pretty much watching
the same shows, everybody'sreading off the same sheet of
music, so to speak.
Everybody's reading off thesame sheet of music, so to speak

(02:24:36):
.
And so I think that in and ofitself fostered more unity, in
that there were more things toidentify with people and we know
the role of sitcoms and moviesand how they impact society and
shape even political policy.
So now it could be a situationnow where, if you take the

(02:25:00):
people on your block on a givenevening, none of the households
are watching the same televisionshow.
So it's like we've we've beenfragmented, uh, at least in in
that respect, uh, in terms ofwhat we watch and what we listen

(02:25:20):
to and the people we talk to.
That kind of becomes our, ourown self-created world.
Well, to your point.
Coming back to the news, um,there was, there was a time you
were either getting your newsfrom Walter Cronkite or Harry.
Reasoner.
Right Now it's almost unlimited, especially if you get into the

(02:25:43):
online news or the podcast-typenews.
I mean there are literallyhundreds, if not thousands of
places all putting their ownspin.

Speaker 3 (02:25:56):
There's some benefits and there's some drawbacks.
You know, obviously that's sortof a nothing observation, but
it's kind of the tyranny of toomany choices in one respect, you
know.
But it also provides a varietyof perspectives that we didn't
have.

(02:26:17):
You weren't being told the newsby, you know, one middle-aged
white man or another, Speakingprimarily to middle-aged white
men Right, right, you know andso that really didn't yeah
reflect, uh, the diversity ofour nation.
You know, even then, um, but um,then it becomes how do you

(02:26:45):
teach the american uh newsconsumer to be a smarter?
Well, a smarter consumer, todiscern difference.
And that comes back to thosecritical thinking skills that we
were talking about at firstbeing able to evaluate evidence,
being able to, um, you know,follow logic or identify where

(02:27:09):
logic has fallen off, thosekinds of things.
And you know not to blamesocial media, but social media
has not increased those sales.

(02:27:31):
And you know it makes errantideas much easier to spread.
Uh and um, you know, uh, as, as, as the demotivator says, uh,
sometimes none of us is as dumbas all of us, you know right,

(02:27:52):
right.

Speaker 2 (02:27:53):
Well, the way I've described that to my wife on it
kind of jokingly, but there's anelement to it, uh of, there's
an element of truth to it aswell.
But in discussing the impact,one of the impacts I think,
social media has had on society,I always say until social media
came along, I had no idea howmany different ways I disagreed

(02:28:17):
with so many of the people thatI know right, and I mean before,
it was pretty simple.
You just said, oh yeah, he orshe is a friend of mine, and
that in and of itself createdthis bubble of unity.
But then social media camealong and it's a public diary

(02:28:37):
for a lot of people and you getthese intimate looks at their
life and it's easy to focus onthe differences rather than the
sameness and, as you point outabout so many things, there are
benefits to that as well, but Ithink the number of variables

(02:28:57):
that it dumps into the equationis so quick.

Speaker 3 (02:29:01):
I think it is naive to assume that those variables
are benignly assigned or thatthings are just happenstance.
You know, and uh, you know yeahwhile you're interacting with
your quote unquote friends, youknow um there are many things

(02:29:24):
happening in in the background.
Uh, yeah, yeah, you know that,and and and that's not some kind
of kooky conspiracy theory, butthat's you know things are
being banned and aggregated andmeasured and reconciled and, you
know, marketed to and you knowa lot of that's.

(02:29:48):
you know a lot of that's veryuseful.
Maybe I didn't know I neededthose shoes you know, or
whatever it is.

Speaker 2 (02:29:59):
I'll give you a recent example, and one I found
quite funny, but it speaksdirectly to the point you just
brought up.
I don't know if you're familiarwith it all.
It's an old kind of christmasthemed movie.
It's called.
It happened on fifth avenue.
Oh, and that, that's kind of afavorite old movie of mine that

(02:30:20):
I watch every christmas seasonand my wife and I were watching
that one evening and, um, thegentleman, uh, mr, uh, aloysius,
uh, that comes in, but he's thehobo, you know, and he and he
comes in and he gets into thewardrobe of the man who owns the
house and and he's got thisrobe on and it's got silk and

(02:30:45):
you know it's a, it's a very uhloud robe.
I'm I'm talking to my wife on,uh, right after that scene and I
said I said honey, I said Ithink I'm gonna get get myself a
robe just like that, and ofcourse she laughed the next
morning.
So this was 10, 30, 10, 30 pm.

(02:31:08):
The next morning.
I came in, sat down at mylaptop, fired it up and on my
laptop were ads featuring arogue.

Speaker 1 (02:31:20):
You and.

Speaker 3 (02:31:20):
I should visit again when we'll talk about the
surveillance society.

Speaker 2 (02:31:28):
I'd like that.
I'd like that.
That would be a fascinatingepisode.
Yeah, we'll like that.
I'd like that.
That would be a fascinatingepisode.
Yeah, we'll do that.
Well listen, dr Pate, we hadoriginally talked about doing an
hour and here we are at two anda half hours, but it tells me
that you and I are probably acouple of people who could sit
and talk endlessly about thingsand enjoy every minute of it.

(02:31:51):
Talk endlessly about things andenjoy every minute of it.
So let's make it a point tohave you back on at some point
in the future and we'll talkabout another area of life that
impacts us all.

Speaker 3 (02:31:59):
I would love it, jack thank you so much for the
invitation to come on yourprogram.
I've been a fan for a long time.
I love what you do here andit's just been a real honor to
be a part of it.

Speaker 1 (02:32:11):
So thank you.

Speaker 3 (02:32:14):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (02:32:15):
Oh, likewise.
Likewise, I can say I'm walkingaway from this with a lot to
think about.
I learned a lot and I just lovethe fact that I get to have
people such as yourself come onand sit down with me one-on-one
and get to learn from you andpick your brain, and that's

(02:32:38):
always a pleasure.
So I truly appreciate the timeyou've committed to me.
Today I'm in debt to you.
For sure, we'll get backtogether soon.
In the meantime, sir, keepdoing what you're doing what
you're doing and we'll talkabout it more in the future.

(02:33:00):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (02:33:00):
Thank you.

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