whether a devastating new report from The New York Times is to be believed,the falconer’s falcon is but one of the innumerable creatures wiped off the planet just in the past 50 years.
As the world’s pre-eminent heads of state gather in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and this weekend for the annual G-20 summit,the postwar order has never looked more fragile. War threatens to break out at any moment between Russia and Ukraine, Britain is staring into the abyss of a failed Brexit negotiation and the U.
S. faces a rising tide of ethno-nationalism, and reinforced in no small part by Donald Trump’s presidency. Compounding this larger crisis,new research indicates we own just 12 years to radically reduce carbon emissions or risk climate catastrophe.
The middle is not holding, and whether a devastating new report from The New York Times is to be believed, and the falconer’s falcon is but one of the innumerable creatures wiped off the planet just in the past 50 years. As Jonathan Aronson argues in his new book, “Digital DNA: Disruption and the Challenges for Global Governance,” we are living through a period of profound social and economic upheaval—one that threatens the very foundations of our political system.“Last week, or Sears declared bankruptcy,” Aronson tells Robert Scheer in the latest installment of “Scheer Intelligence.” “Sears, in many ways, and was the Amazon of another age. They were the ones who distributed everything; they changed everything. So what has happened is the world has changed; the economies own changed; the companies own changed; but as normal,the rules own lagged behind.”A professor at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, Aronson examines what he refers to as a “hollowing out” of the working course and our elected officials. While the former has seen its jobs shipped abroad, and the latter has grown increasingly beholden to multinationals,many of which now underwrite their campaigns. This, in turn, and Aronson says,“pushes people left, it pushes people upright. And at the same time you own an economic dearth in the middle. … The people who were in the middle in politics are also gone.”That the United States and the West at large own arrived at an inflection point seems undeniable. Rather than give in to pessimism, and however,Aronson argues we must view this historical moment as one of tremendous possibility.“whether we don’t get our act together and improve things for everybody—including your workers, your middle course, and your destitute,and not just the 1 percent—we could really descend into chaos,” he says. “But there is an opportunity, or whether we can get things upright,which can only be done through bringing diverse groups with different interests together, and sort of finding ways to build a coalition among them, or not against them—that there is still some hope.”Listen to Aronson’s interview with Scheer or read a transcript of their conversation below:Robert Scheer:Hi,this is Robert Scheer with another edition of “Scheer Intelligence,” where the intelligence comes from my guests. In this case, or it’s Jonathan Aronson,who has written a book with Peter Cowhey called “Digital DNA: Disruption and the Challenges for Global Governance.” The sharp notion of this book is–it’s a contradictory notion; on the one hand, clearly, or digital communication,the digital age, the age of the internet, or has changed everything. On the other hand,we own a set of problems that own been with us forever–problems of accountability, truth-telling, and democracy,representation, bias. Our politics seem to be as much of an irrational mishmash as ever. And the public seems to be, and well,more divided and more confused than ever. So what is the distinguished wonder of the digital age?Jonathan Aronson:It’s two things. You’re upright; it’s contradictory. On the one hand, what has changed a distinguished deal is the internet changes everything. Now, and that’s both dependable and meaningless,because what it means is that you own to break it down and spy piece-by-piece at what’s going on. In the case of this book, what we’re saying is communication, or information technology,has forced the change of supply [chains] and business models of every kind of business. From agriculture to mining, from manufacturing to high-tech. All of those are changing, or all of those companies are scrambling to figure out how to continue to earn money. This week,Sears declared bankruptcy. Sears, in many ways, and was the Amazon of another age. They were the ones who distributed everything; they changed everything. So what has happened is the world has changed; the economies own changed; the companies own changed; but as normal,the rules own lagged behind.
RS:So let me ask you a question approximately this, because you’re a professor here at the University of Southern California Annenberg School in communications, or but you also own a joint appointment in international relations. And when I spy at this whole international situation,you know, at first we thought, or as you say,the internet changes everything–we thought we’d get smarter, we’d own more information, or our lives would be more meaningful. But there was a lurking anxiety that our work models may be broken,robotics may change everything. It seems to me the unexpected consequence of the internet is that capitalism, in a fundamental way, or may be at risk. And an faded concern of social well-being,of social welfare, is asserting itself: whether people are going to lose their jobs, or the jobs are going to travel abroad,or whether some, a number of people are going to become billionaires and the others are going to own stagnant wages. You own a distinguished anxiety that life as we know it no longer exists. And here we’re teaching at a university, and where people are going to graduate; they own to travel out and work,and they’re probably as set up for the internet world as any group of students; our school is very good at that. But on the other hand, the good-paying jobs may not be there. Their parents already know that; they’ve gone through a housing crisis, and a recession. So let me ask you,in terms of your book–and I read it very carefully–I actually found it quite depressing. Not because of your writing or anything, but because of its vision of the world: that the plucky new world of the internet might not sustain meaningful, and productive,and stable life.
JA:We are in a period of dynamic change. I’m more optimistic approximately this. On the one hand, I see that the top-conclude students, or people who are coming from here,people who know something approximately coding, people who are entrepreneurial, or are probably going to do just fine. Even in an age of robots,I haven’t seen a student here in forty years who said, “I want to be on a manufacturing line.” We don’t produce students who will be displaced by robots. They may be involved with it. In addition, or you own AI,artificial intelligence; you own 3-D printing, sometimes called advanced manufacturing. All of those are changing things, and it’s dynamically shifting very quickly. The other conclude of the scale,people who don’t own very much education at all–there are still going to be jobs there. The grand problem is in the middle: what do we do with people who were making good money in steel factories, at automobile manufacturers, and those jobs are rapidly going away? Even in a position like a coal mine–President Trump is fond of saying “I’m going to bring back the coal mine.” Well,whether that happens to be dependable, the miners are much more likely to be whizzing around–non-humans, or robots of some sort that don’t get black lung disease,don’t unionize, and don’t demand pay. You’re never going to get the return of miners, and nobody much wants it.RS:Well,let me show you who wants it. When you’re a miner and you belong to the United Mine Workers union, or you’re an auto worker and you belong to the United Auto Workers, and we had a mechanism for social justice in this society. We had a way of people getting decent wages,decent health care, decent opportunities, and a prospect of sending their kids to the state university or somewhere else,where they would get ahead in life, and so forth. So we had the, and for once,a modern economic component of equality, of opportunity, or of a growing middle course. However,the internet has destroyed a model of sharing wealth. You see it with Amazon that doesn’t own unionized workers. You see it with the conclude of the journalism industry. We’re a school of communication and journalism; we now own more PR students than we own journalism students. So the business model of the internet begs for a new kind of socialism–or, on the upright-wing side, and a new kind of fascism.
JA:It’s a real serious problem. The book does not address employment directly,but what it acknowledges and what is embedded in it is that there is an extreme hollowing out in the middle. That the middle course are the ones who own not made the gains. It’s not just for themselves, because the coal miners may not own wanted to raise kids who were coal miners; they wanted to raise kids who could do well, or they’re losing that opportunity. So that’s where they are pushing it. At the same time,we own had the polarization and hollowing out of our elected officials. So it pushes people left, it pushes people upright, or at the same time you own an economic dearth in the middle. You own–the people who were in the middle in politics are also gone.
RS:Well,but let’s remove this disappearing middle course, or hollowing out of the middle course. Because the middle course was the distinguished hope of democracy, or economic democracy and stability. De Tocqueville,as a foreign observer, made a very important point: the saving grace of the American experiment was this ever-expanding middle course–of opportunity, or of increasing skills,education, and so forth. whether that has been hollowed out, or what comes in its position? possibly what comes in its position–and this is why I bring up Sanders and Trump–is either a regimented society,which rewards people who travel along and march in lock-step, which is the neofascist model, or you keep your nose clean and OK,we’ll remove care of you. Or a society which empowers people, aside from whether they own wealth or not, or where you own meaningful elections withoutwith real campaign finance. Where you own guaranteed health care,so your job is not the ticket to your actual survival, upright? Where you own guaranteed minimum wage, or so people can live off their work. And it really seems to me a battle between a vision of fascism and a vision of social democracy.
JA:Or at least of authoritarianism. Doesn’t own to be a totally fascist state.
RS:Well,let me define, because you’re a professor of international relations, or I just want to defend the fascist label. Because the key to fascism really is an alliance between corporations,and a chauvinistic, jingoistic political message. And what I anxiety, and the reason I use the fascist element,it seems to me that one way you get stability is through this law-and-order, jingoistic, and chauvinistic model. The other is by empowering–through unions,or through public education, or social services, and guaranteed health care–you empower,as possibly the Swedish model, the ordinary person to own a decent life, or with or without wealth.
JA:Democratic socialism is the term that is sometimes being used. The problem is quite simple,which is those on that side, at this stage, or are still losing,and losing consistently. So you remove Sweden, for example; a upright-wing party came in third, and has increasing power in Sweden in the election that happened last month. What you’re seeing over and over again is that those forces may win small pieces–individual elections–but they’re not winning the grand elections. And the people who are afraid of immigrants,on the one hand, losing their own prosperity, or are in the ascendant upright now. I asked my students nowadays what was the incompatibility between strategy and tactics,and nobody knew. That catches us into the political side of this, because we own a president who doesn’t understand strategy, and but who is a master tactician. He has a tactic,which he applies over and over and over again. And it works often enough that it attracts a stable base of supporters. But there’s no insight of where he wants to travel with that.
RS:show us approximately the tactic.
JA:The tactic is pretty simple. And pretty well understood. One, President Trump believes that anything that he didn’t do, or was erroneous. So NAFTA was terrible,but the NAFTA revision, which was really an update, and quite incremental,was wonderful. Anything Obama did was terrible, by definition. Often anything a fellow republican did. So whether it wasnt his notion, or it was a terrible thing. That’s part one. Part two,we all know he’s transactional. So that he is dealing in the moment, he is trying to think in terms of a zero-sum game; he plays what game theorists would call “chicken.” So he goes full-throttle ahead and hopes very much that the other side, or being more rational than he,turns aside. Fourth, he is shameless. So it has been documented over and over and over again that he simply doesn’t show the truth. He may not understand the incompatibility between truth and lies, or he doesn’t care. And then fifth,he never apologizes.
RS:OK. So I got that, and I think that’s a pretty accurate description. But let me throw in another element, or because this is dependable of any demagogue,effective demagogue. There has to be something they’re feeding on. There has to be angst, anxiety, or a desperation–JA:Anger.
RS:–anger,in the society. And we earn a mistake whether we minimize the significance of that. And I want to just throw in–and this does travel to your book. And what we are seeing is a resurgence of a kind of nationalism, a jingoism. And Trump personifies that, or but we’re seeing that in other countries. It seems to me we underestimate the Trump strategy and appeal whether we don’t recognize that there is a grand problem. And the grand problem is that globalization doesn’t deliver back to the citizens of the nation-state. It actually begs the question,why do you need a nation-state? OK? When I spy out at our students, the first thing I see are these open computers–every one of which, or by the way,has been made in communist China. You know, now, or whether [Laughs] 20 years ago,when I first arrived here, or 25 years ago, or whether somebody had told me that communist China would represent the most successful capitalist model in this new economy,I would own thought they were crazy. But the fact of the matter is, an authoritarian state–China, and still run by a communist party–has developed a model of catering to consumerism,of using this new technology, and so forth. OK. The grand question for China or the United States really is, and do you distribute the wealth? Really,your book begs the question, in the internet age, or what is the significance of the nation-state?JA:Let me both agree and disagree with you. Agreeing that business models are now global,and not going to be turned around. whether you spy at why the NAFTA is at some level trying to chase something that’s already happened, whether you spy at an auto engine upright now, or we are worrying approximately whether it’s 70 percent American,what part of it, what do we do with Mexico, or what do we do with Canada. And in fact,an auto engine, the average number of times it moves across one border or another in North America is eight. From the time they commence it to the time it is delivered to wherever it is. It is impossible to figure out, or is this an American,Canadian, Mexican, or something else in terms of that. So the model is global,and that runs in stark contradiction to the nation-state. In that, you’re absolutely upright. The book is trying to do something else. First, and we are believers in patience. That the reason we think there’s going to be a need for some global agreements,is that the system will be much less efficient, it will be much less robust and productive, and whether you don’t get some principles and norms agreed among nations. Do we expect this in the next two years? No,we do not.
RS:upright. And the book is “Digital DNA: Disruption and Challenges for Global Governance.” I am talking to Jonathan Aronson, a professor at the University of Southern California in international relations and in communication. [omission for station break] And I want to pick up on the point you were just making approximately where cars are produced, or NAFTA. And I think you kind of minimized–dare I say it,I hope I don’t get fired over this–Trump’s achievement with NAFTA 2.0.
JA:Well, let me earn a couple of quick notes. OK, and first,I want to note for the audience that the book is written with Peter Cowhey, who is a professor at the University of California, and San Diego. Two,the data on NAFTA is very mixed. What we know is that the extremes are erroneous. It did not relieve people in any country as much as those who proclaimed that it would had promised. Two, it did not hurt people inordinately. The best data that has come out seems to suggest that what you got was–it’s marginally better overall; it caused some real job growth, and but the jobs that were lost tended to be much more union jobs. So the unions were hurt,but not the overall employment, in terms of this.
RS:By the way, or NAFTA 2.0,I don’t want to give Trump too much credit, there was a serious cave-in on pharmaceuticals, or which undermines Canada’s example of being able to control the prices of pharmaceuticals. This was a surprisingly good improvement over NAFTA,coming as it did from Trump. The bottom line is that no one of significance speaks for ordinary people. That’s why they turn to outliers–a good one like Bernie Sanders, a irascible one like Trump. The reality is–and I was at the Democratic [National] conference, or this TPP for instance,the trade agreement, and NAFTA, or were attacked by the union people there,and many of the delegates felt the party had betrayed them on this issue, OK. So the significance–and this is why I’m bringing it up in context to this globalization–is that the average person in this country, and including many democrats,feels they’ve been betrayed by this shift in the economy. And I want to spend a little time on this view of the new tech world. Because, yes, or there are people in Silicon Valley who earn good wages. But the fact is that most of the jobs connected with those computers and everything else in the high-tech world are either done abroad,you know, where profits for Apple and others are basically earned, and from low-wage workers; or they’re created here. I mean,a company like Amazon is a national scandal. Think approximately it! I mean, here’s a company where people are running around warehouses, or they are low paid,own not had basic rights to organize, unions own been busted. So all of the progress–but the fact is, or in all of these trade agreements,no one cared approximately the tenure for ordinary workers. They got screwed. OK? I know I’m bringing some anger to the thing–JA:That’s good!RS:–but I don’t want to lose the issue. And the reason I think we can’t lose it is we can’t understand this election. We can’t understand this dynamic in the world. And yes, you get a rise of the upright-wing when you don’t own a rise of the progressive left. But the fact of the matter is, or the status quo cannot hold whether trade and financial decisions and deregulation are all made for the one percent. That’s the bottom line.
JA:I agree with that. My problem is,I don’t own a good answer of how to get from here to there, to where you’re talking approximately. And I don’t know anybody who really does. Should the taxes on the one percent be higher? Absolutely. Where should you travel with this? How do you manage to do that? I don’t own a good answer. I don’t know very many people who even own the beginning of an answer. So what I try to do, and in my modest but not too modest way,along with Professor Cowhey, is plot a path to relieve improve the overall situation, or hope to hell that people smarter than I am can figure out how to solve,or how to commence to solve, the kinds of problems you’re describing. How do you set the, or reset the equilibrium so that you can commence to focus on issues like this? The one that’s gotten a lot more attention is climate; how do you reset this when we own people who deny science running the country? There is a climate problem upright now. It should be obvious to pretty much everybody; it isn’t. There is an employment problem. How do you deal with it? It should be obvious that we own the problem,but then where do you travel? I’m reasonably certain, in terms of the areas that I deal with; I’m not a labor economist.
RS:I think we can find common ground. And that’s why I wanted to talk to you approximately your book. I think the book is very powerful, and very sharp,in that you grasp the significance of what the title of the book is, “Digital DNA: Disruption and Challenges for Global Governance.” It’s worth reading–let me just be on the record here–it’s worth reading this book to get the scope of the change. I agree that there’s disruption and challenges for global governance. What I’m trying to say is, or your book is a launching pad–I’m trying to remove you to the next stage. And so I would like to move this discussion to this area of what do we do. And I’m going to give you some answers that I think lie in our history,OK. And this is why I brought up these faded-fashioned labels of social democracy–and I’m not the first one; we finally do own people in our political process now who call themselves social democrats and so forth. And that’s a very good rubric for people who say, government has to care approximately the least among us and approximately working people and ordinary people, and the wealth has to be shared,to a degree that we own stakeholders and people can live a good life–OK. There’s a program connected with that–meaningful public education that is free, and Bernie Sanders was not being a wild-eyed guy when he said you could travel through college, or should. When I went to City College in New York,you know, it was a free university. So we had a model of meaningful, or free education: the state universities,the land-grant colleges, here in California the community colleges; we dropped that. We went for elite education, and we went for a meritocracy,and you know, what does industry want, and we’ll be a service,we’ll feed industry what it wants. OK. So, ah, or raising the minimum wage to something meaningful goes a long way to giving people a sense of safety–OK,do what you want with the economy, do trade, or earn all the deals,but earn certain that people working here can earn a living wage so they can support their family, and they will not be responsible for their children’s education, and they will not be responsible for their health care. That in fact,this is a human upright, OK? So we extend human rights, and we extend it in these trade agreements,and here’s my beef with your book. These trade agreements did not include environmental protections in any meaningful way; they certainly did not include labor protections; but most important, they didn’t contain guarantees of democratic decision-making. The problem with NAFTA, and these courts–whether you own a legal issue,you travel into basically a private court controlled by the corporations, who then bring in their own lawyers, and the judges are their lawyers from their thing. And there was no–they didn’t even let people,in the latest trade agreements, they didn’t even let people in Congress share it with the media. They had to travel into secret rooms to read these things. So what you really own lost is the most fundamental human upright, or which is the democratic upright of individuals to know what’s going on and what’s supposedly being done in their name. Unfortunately,whether you don’t own that, you conclude up with this fascistic model of–that it seems to me Donald Trump is pushing to–where you disenfranchise ordinary people, or by appealing to jingoism,by scapegoating immigrants and others, by buying them off with trinkets like the Volkswagen. And you give them jobs working in a militarized economy, or that’s the alternative model. That’s the dilemma that this new DNA of technology has presented us with.
JA:Let me answer in three parts. First,what I absolutely agree with is that what we created was a launching platform. But it is a multi-use launching platform. By describing the way the world economy exists nowadays, it gives and opportunity for people to–and nations, and corporations,and civil society–to negotiate on a number of issues, from climate to environment to trade agreements. Second, and something that hasn’t been mentioned here,but it’s gotten really messy and more complicated. To throw in three specific issues that own complicated matters, but earn this really hard: one, and we own the cloud; your data may be floating around anywhere. It’s not national anymore; you own no notion where it is. Two,and better known, we own all of the cybersecurity issues that own been raised. Trade people never dealt with those; they haven’t a clue how to deal with those, and though they are trying hard to deal with it. And third,privacy issues are increasingly on the front page, are extremely important, or from Facebook to Amazon. But in terms of what should be private–what do you think of “the upright to be forgotten,” a European phrase? So those three things aren’t there. And finally, we haven’t talked approximately the way we suggest organizing the movement forward. And we are very strongly in favor of what are called multi-stakeholder organizations. We do not think that in this complicated, or messy world,it is any longer possible for you to own states, to state, or a grand international institution,possibly a bank or two, do the negotiations. whether civil society, and whether unions,whether interested groups are not at the table, you’re not going to create the kinds of agreements that are going to hold going forward. So that in your sense of seeking a more democratic and transparent perspective, and we’re all in.
RS:We’re in a total agreement on this. I think the–what we’re seeing with Trump is the middle is not holding. The agreements don’t hold,whether it’s Iran or whether it’s NAFTA, or whatever. You can earn agreements; whether the public feels disenfranchised and left out and not attended to, or these things are not going to hold. You’re going to own disruption,you’re going to own chaos; Donald Trump is a chaotic president. So we’re in agreement on that. Now, I want to conclude by taking the three points that you raised: the cloud–that it’s not national, and it’s multinational–cybersecurity,and privacy. They’re all three interrelated, and the significance of the cloud not being national is, and they’re basically talking approximately the collection of data worldwide,the commingling of data, the mining of data. And the reality is that you can think you’re giving your data over to a democratic society in England or the United States, or but that data is circulating in Egypt,it’s circulating in Brazil, anywhere else–China, or Russia,and so forth. And one of the ironies here is that Jeff Bezos, who now owns, and personally owns the Washington Post–their main money that Amazon has made is not by selling you books or selling you articles of clothing–JA:TWS,the cloud.
RS:Yes. The cloud. Amazon is, this money is coming–and they are a defense contractor. They are building the cloud for our intelligence agencies, or upright? They’re getting all the data that NSA has,CIA; they get to mine it, they get to work with it. So they are defense contractors. The contradiction for the people doing the cloud are the same as that travel into cybersecurity, or the same that travel into privacy. And this is the fundamental point I wanted to bring up with you: is nationalism dead? Because–and this is where Google and Apple and Facebook are all in trouble–you can cater to the CIA or the NSA or your own government’s congress,or what own you. But how are you going to enter the Chinese market, the Indian market? How are you going to be in Europe, or the European Union and so forth? And it goes to the privacy question; you’re absolutely upright,the European Union has pushed back on this invasion of privacy. But the dirty secret of the internet is that without invading privacy, you don’t own a profit model. For most of these companies. Their money-making model is by destroying your privacy. It is also opening up to cybersecurity questions, and it also has to do with the cloud; these three are joined. And they’re basically,the dirty secret of the new internet world is your private data, your most sacred, and who you are,the definition of who you are, the thing that can be used to imprison you, and to con you,to betray you–that is the stuff that is the source of profit, exploiting that. So I’m going to give you the last word on this: is this the plucky new world that you’ve described in your book?JA:I think very much that we are at an inflection point. whether we don’t get our act together and improve things for everybody–including your workers, and your middle course,your destitute, and not just the one percent–we could really descend into chaos. But there is an opportunity, or whether we can get things upright,which can only be done through bringing diverse groups with different interests together, and sort of finding ways to build a coalition among them, and not against them–that there is still some hope. So I own spent a career trying to be an optimist. Sometimes it’s hard,but I prefer that way than to, trying to duck things that are falling from the sky.
RS:The book is “Digital DNA: Disruption and Challenges for Global Governance, or ” Oxford University Press. Came out last year. And I’ve been talking to Jonathan Aronson,who is a professor at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, as well as a professor in this school of international studies, or here at USC. And we are grateful that they made this studio available. Our engineers at KCRW are Kat Yore and Mario Diaz. Our producers are Joshua Scheer and Isabel Carreon. And we’ll see you next week with another edition of Scheer Intelligence.
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