Podcasts about hobbesian

Yesterday, the Canadian writer Diane Francis argued that Donald Trump should consider Xi Jinping's China a competitor rather than an enemy. Perhaps. But in this zero-sum “competition” between Trump and Xi for top tough guy, there can only be one winner. As Xi Jinping's father's biographer, Joseph Torigian explains, Xi had a brutally harsh upbringing. In his new book about Xi's father, Xi Zhongxun, Torigian explains that it was a childhood descent from privileged son of a communist party aristocrat to utter poverty, political exile and literal homelessness. That's the kind of tough guy that our self-styled “tough guy” President is competing with in today's Hobbesian bipolar world of international politics. I'm pretty sure that only one of these tough guys will come out on top. And it won't be the pampered middle son of a real-estate mogul from Queens.1. Xi Jinping's "Toughness" is Genuine, Not PerformativeUnlike privileged leaders who talk tough, Xi was forged by real hardship - his father was purged five times, spent 16 years in political exile, and Xi himself experienced homelessness, street battles, and rural exile. This created authentic resilience, not manufactured bravado.2. China's System Remains Dangerously Leader-DependentDespite assumptions about "collective leadership," Chinese politics never escaped the strongman model. Even Deng Xiaoping, supposedly constrained by colleagues, made unilateral decisions like Tiananmen. Xi isn't breaking the system - he's following its core logic that only a powerful "core" leader can hold China together.3. Taiwan is Personal, Not Just Political for XiHis father Xi Zhongxun was the party's leading "United Front" strategist who handled Taiwan relations in the 1980s through secret back-channels. For Xi, Taiwan represents both unfinished family business and his promise not to be "the one to lose" Chinese territory bequeathed by ancestors.4. Xi's Strategy is Patience, Not RecklessnessGrowing up watching his father navigate purges taught Xi when to act and when to "bide his time." Unlike Putin's sledgehammer approach, Xi moves "deliberately and competitively, but cautiously" - preferring to win without fighting rather than risk catastrophic failure.5. The Party's Biggest Fear is Losing the Next GenerationXi obsesses over whether young Chinese will remain loyal to the revolutionary cause without experiencing the hardship that dedicated his generation. With property crashes and youth unemployment, he's trying to recreate commitment through "national sacrifice" narratives - but it's unclear if this will work on a generation that expects prosperity, not suffering.1. Xi Jinping's "Toughness" is Genuine, Not PerformativeUnlike privileged leaders who talk tough, Xi was forged by real hardship - his father was purged five times, spent 16 years in political exile, and Xi himself experienced homelessness, street battles, and rural exile. This created authentic resilience, not manufactured bravado.2. China's System Remains Dangerously Leader-DependentDespite assumptions about "collective leadership," Chinese politics never escaped the strongman model. Even Deng Xiaoping, supposedly constrained by colleagues, made unilateral decisions like Tiananmen. Xi isn't breaking the system - he's following its core logic that only a powerful "core" leader can hold China together.3. Taiwan is Personal, Not Just Political for XiHis father Xi Zhongxun was the party's leading "United Front" strategist who handled Taiwan relations in the 1980s through secret back-channels. For Xi, Taiwan represents both unfinished family business and his promise not to be "the one to lose" Chinese territory bequeathed by ancestors.4. Xi's Strategy is Patience, Not RecklessnessGrowing up watching his father navigate purges taught Xi when to act and when to "bide his time." Unlike Putin's sledgehammer approach, Xi moves "deliberately and competitively, but cautiously" - preferring to win without fighting rather than risk catastrophic failure.5. The Party's Biggest Fear is Losing the Next GenerationXi obsesses over whether young Chinese will remain loyal to the revolutionary cause without experiencing the hardship that dedicated his generation. With property crashes and youth unemployment, he's trying to recreate commitment through "national sacrifice" narratives - but it's unclear if this will work on a generation that expects prosperity, not suffering. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

In The Frontier Effect: State Formation and Violence in Colombia (Cornell UP, 2020), Teo Ballvé challenges the notion that in Urabá, Colombia, the cause of the region's violent history and unruly contemporary condition is the absence of the state. Although he takes this locally oft-repeated claim seriously, he demonstrates that Urabá is more than a case of Hobbesian political disorder. Through his insightful exploration of war, paramilitary organizations, grassroots support and resistance, and drug-related violence, Ballvé argues that Urabá, rather than existing in statelessness, has actually been an intense and persistent site of state-building projects. Indeed, these projects have thrust together an unlikely gathering of guerilla groups, drug-trafficking paramilitaries, military strategists, technocratic planners, local politicians, and development experts each seeking to give concrete coherence to the inherently unwieldy abstraction of "the state" in a space in which it supposedly does not exist. By untangling this odd mix, Ballvé reveals how Colombia's violent conflicts have produced surprisingly coherent and resilient, if not at all benevolent, regimes of rule. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

In The Frontier Effect: State Formation and Violence in Colombia (Cornell UP, 2020), Teo Ballvé challenges the notion that in Urabá, Colombia, the cause of the region's violent history and unruly contemporary condition is the absence of the state. Although he takes this locally oft-repeated claim seriously, he demonstrates that Urabá is more than a case of Hobbesian political disorder. Through his insightful exploration of war, paramilitary organizations, grassroots support and resistance, and drug-related violence, Ballvé argues that Urabá, rather than existing in statelessness, has actually been an intense and persistent site of state-building projects. Indeed, these projects have thrust together an unlikely gathering of guerilla groups, drug-trafficking paramilitaries, military strategists, technocratic planners, local politicians, and development experts each seeking to give concrete coherence to the inherently unwieldy abstraction of "the state" in a space in which it supposedly does not exist. By untangling this odd mix, Ballvé reveals how Colombia's violent conflicts have produced surprisingly coherent and resilient, if not at all benevolent, regimes of rule. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/latin-american-studies

In The Frontier Effect: State Formation and Violence in Colombia (Cornell UP, 2020), Teo Ballvé challenges the notion that in Urabá, Colombia, the cause of the region's violent history and unruly contemporary condition is the absence of the state. Although he takes this locally oft-repeated claim seriously, he demonstrates that Urabá is more than a case of Hobbesian political disorder. Through his insightful exploration of war, paramilitary organizations, grassroots support and resistance, and drug-related violence, Ballvé argues that Urabá, rather than existing in statelessness, has actually been an intense and persistent site of state-building projects. Indeed, these projects have thrust together an unlikely gathering of guerilla groups, drug-trafficking paramilitaries, military strategists, technocratic planners, local politicians, and development experts each seeking to give concrete coherence to the inherently unwieldy abstraction of "the state" in a space in which it supposedly does not exist. By untangling this odd mix, Ballvé reveals how Colombia's violent conflicts have produced surprisingly coherent and resilient, if not at all benevolent, regimes of rule. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

In The Frontier Effect: State Formation and Violence in Colombia (Cornell UP, 2020), Teo Ballvé challenges the notion that in Urabá, Colombia, the cause of the region's violent history and unruly contemporary condition is the absence of the state. Although he takes this locally oft-repeated claim seriously, he demonstrates that Urabá is more than a case of Hobbesian political disorder. Through his insightful exploration of war, paramilitary organizations, grassroots support and resistance, and drug-related violence, Ballvé argues that Urabá, rather than existing in statelessness, has actually been an intense and persistent site of state-building projects. Indeed, these projects have thrust together an unlikely gathering of guerilla groups, drug-trafficking paramilitaries, military strategists, technocratic planners, local politicians, and development experts each seeking to give concrete coherence to the inherently unwieldy abstraction of "the state" in a space in which it supposedly does not exist. By untangling this odd mix, Ballvé reveals how Colombia's violent conflicts have produced surprisingly coherent and resilient, if not at all benevolent, regimes of rule. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

Jess and Teen rail against modernity, a tendency it seems of the young and the old, but not of those stuck in the fat middle slog of life. The retreat of culture from physical real estate, the Hobbesian all-against-all ethic of the social media era, and how none of this is new, it's just getting worse. And an extended discussion in the bonus around pro-/anti-natalism against the backdrop of a society spiraling out. Part 1 of 2 For bonus episodes: patreon.com/planamag

In this episode from the ChinaPower Podcast, Dr. Joseph Torigian joins host Bonny Lin to discuss his newly released book, The Party's Interests Come First: The Life of Xi Zhongxun, Father of Xi Jinping. Dr. Torigian describes the life and struggle of Xi Zhongxun as a party official during the Cultural revolution and specifically the impact he had on the life and political views of Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Dr. Torigian notes that his book utilizes the story of Xi Zhongxun's life as a lens to better understand how the Party works and why both Xi Zhongxun and Xi Jinping believe certain values, such as those of sacrifice and suffering for the greater good, are highly important. He describes how Xi Jinping was viewed positively by his father due to the idea that his son had “eaten more bitterness” than other children, even going as far as to state that Xi Jinping had “the makings of a premier.” Dr. Torigian describes how deeply involved Xi Zhongxun was during his time in the party on the United Front, ethnic policy in Tibet and Xinjiang, and policy towards Taiwan, and how, because of his father's dedication to these issues, Xi Jinping views them as personal unfinished business. Finally, Dr. Torigian describes how Xi Zhongxun's influence on his son has left Xi Jinping with a Hobbesian view of the world and with the idea that the Party is the best tool for helping China assert its rightful place in the world and secure its inevitable march towards greatness.

In this episode of the ChinaPower Podcast, Dr. Joseph Torigian joins us to discuss his newly released book The Party's Interests Come First: The Life of Xi Zhongxun, Father of Xi Jinping. Dr. Torigian describes the life and struggle of Xi Zhongxun as a party official during the Cultural revolution and specifically the impact he had on the life and political views of Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Dr. Torigian notes that his book utilizes the story of Xi Zhongxun's life as a lens to better understand how the Party works and why both Xi Zhongxun and Xi Jinping believe certain values, such as those of sacrifice and suffering for the greater good, are highly important. He describes how Xi Jinping was viewed positively by his father due to the idea that his son had “eaten more bitterness” than other children, even going as far as to state that Xi Jinping had “the makings of a premier.” Dr. Torigian describes how deeply involved Xi Zhongxun was during his time in the party on the United Front, ethnic policy in Tibet and Xinjiang, and policy towards Taiwan, and how, because of his father's dedication to these issues, Xi Jinping views them as personal unfinished business. Finally, Dr. Torigian describes how Xi Zhongxun's influence on his son has left Xi Jinping with a Hobbesian view of the world and with the idea that the Party is the best tool for helping China assert its rightful place in the world and secure its inevitable march towards greatness. Dr. Torigian is a research fellow at Stanford's Hoover History Lab, an associate professor at the School of International Service at American University in Washington, and a center associate of the Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies at the University of Michigan. Previously, he was a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, Postdoctoral Fellow at Princeton-Harvard's China and the World Program, a Postdoctoral (and Predoctoral) Fellow at Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), a Predoctoral Fellow at George Washington University's Institute for Security and Conflict Studies, an IREX scholar affiliated with the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, a Fulbright Scholar at Fudan University in Shanghai, and a research associate at the Council on Foreign Relations. His research has also been supported by the Stanford Center on International Conflict and Negotiation, MIT's Center for International Studies, MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives, the Critical Language Scholarship program, and FLAS.

Alex sits down with Brian Chau of From the New World for an extended discussion on a range of topics, from building up UATX, to the Online Right, to Strauss on reactionary thought and esoteric writing. The pair tackle it all. This week, the focus shifts to a look at Hobbesian philosophy and Machiavellianism. 

Can anyone be trusted anymore?Trust is the glue that holds our social world together, yet it's one of the most fragile bonds we have. In this episode of Hotel Bar Sessions, Rick, Leigh, and Devonya dive into the complexities of trust—what it means, how it functions, and why it's so easy to break but so difficult to restore. From everyday acts of trust, like believing the grocery store clerk's name tag, to the deep-seated political crisis of trust in institutions and democracy, the hosts explore trust as an epistemic, moral, and affective structure that shapes our relationships. Along the way, they discuss Derrida's take on truth-telling, the role of consistency and shared values, and why mistrust often seems more apparent than trust itself.But what happens when trust is shattered—whether between friends, citizens and their government, or even entire political factions? The conversation takes a sobering turn toward our current crisis of trust, examining how unmoored we feel when institutions, democratic processes, and even long-standing social contracts seem to be unraveling. Is trust something we can rebuild, or are we slipping toward a Hobbesian world of raw power? With humor, philosophical insight, and a healthy dose of frustration, the hosts wrestle with the question: how do we live together well when trust is in such short supply?Full episode notes available at this link:https://hotelbarpodcast.com/podcast/episode-171-trust-------------------If you enjoy Hotel Bar Sessions podcast, please be sure to subscribe and submit a rating/review! Better yet, you can support this podcast by signing up to be one of our Patrons at patreon.com/hotelbarsessions!Follow us on Twitter/X @hotelbarpodcast, on Blue Sky @hotelbarpodcast.bsky.social, on Facebook, on TikTok, and subscribe to our YouTube channel! 

The boys drink and review a pilsner, then discuss the English philosopher, Thomas Hobbes.Hobbes is best known for his characterization of life in the state of nature as "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."Pigweed sets the historical context with some dates and the very consequential events that occurred during Hobbes' life -- including the English civil war, the execution of Charles I, and the restoration.Hobbes wanted to know who gets to rule, under what circumstances, and within what limits. He starts by reflecting on human nature, which he says is a horrific state of war where people live in a constant state of fear. People can make agreements with their neighbors, but Hobbes says there's a need for a sovereign who makes sure people keep their agreements.In Hobbes's mind, the state of nature is so awful that any sovereign, no matter how awful, no matter how tyrannical, is better.

Can Europe provide solutions to the West's existential crisis? Is the continent sleepwalking into a further diminished international role and geopolitical irrelevance? Can a “Kantian” Europe still thrive vs a “Hobbesian” rest of the world?Recorded at the Delphi Economic Forum in April 2024, this podcast presents a captivating discussion between Evangelos Venizelos, Deputy PM & MFA (2013 –2015) of Greece and Pavlos Tsimas, journalist of SKAI TV and Ta Nea newspaper, on Europe's quest to achieve strategic autonomy and position itself as a credible world actor, in the face of unprecedented geopolitical turmoil in Ukraine, the Middle East and beyond.

What does this 1959 film, based upon the Nevil Shute novel of the same name, tell us about the threat of thermonuclear war, and thought surrounding the notion of doomsday machines? How does the story relate to other films that explore the theme, most notably Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove? How does the story develop the idea of the so-called “cobalt bomb”? How do the American naval captain Dwight Towers and his crew cope with his knowledge that his family back in the United States has most likely perished? How do the Australians he lives and works with, respond to the fact that they have limited time before they die? The film portrays mankind as ‘keeping calm and carrying on' in the face of imminent extinction nine months hence. Is this realistic? How does Shute's story contrast with other works of post-apocalyptic fiction that portray chaos, the breakdown of social order, and a Hobbesian ‘war of all against all'? Which prediction is closer to being an accurate picture of human nature in such dire circumstances? Why has anxiety about the prospect of major thermonuclear war dissipated in the eight decades since Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Does the fact that no such war has occurred vindicate the thought of such strategic thinkers as Herman Kahn and Edward Teller? Why or why not?

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring one key issue currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, hosted by deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan. "Ex astrophysicist now Hobbesian realist." Not many people can pull off that social media profile moniker. In fact, there's likely only one: Prof. Gerald Steinberg, the founder of NGO Monitor. Today, Steinberg is an emeritus professor of Political Studies from Bar Ilan University. Among his realms of interest, he is an expert in human rights, soft power and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). He's delved so deeply into NGOs that in 2002 he founded one himself, the Institute for NGO Research, which is a recognized organization in Special Consultative Status with the UN Economic and Social Council since 2013. NGO Monitor states that it aims to promote accountability and discussion on the reports and activities of NGOs claiming to advance human rights and humanitarian agendas in Israel. Steinberg often targets the bigger "corporate" NGOs such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, and a word that came up several times in our discussion is “hypocrisy.” But during our conversation, he also names several smaller groups that are going fair-minded work. So this week, we ask Prof. Gerald Steinberg, what matters now. What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.  IMAGE: Prof. Gerald Steinberg, the founder of NGO Monitor, at The Times of Israel's Jerusalem office, July 30, 2024. (Amanda Borschel-Dan/ToI)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The US Congress just announced war on TikTok; while, in Europe, the EU declared war this week on Spotify and Apple. Elon Musk and Sam Altman have declared war over OpenAI. And everyone inside and outside Google are all war over Gemini. But That Was The Week's Keith Teare, Silicon Valley's most cheerful optimist, still believes in what he sees as the inevitably progressive arc of history away from the power of government. Meanwhile Bitcoin just hit $69,000. What could possibly go wrong?Keith Teare is a Founder and CEO at SignalRank Corporation. Previously he was Executive Chairman at Accelerated Digital Ventures Ltd - A UK-based global investment company focused on startups at all stages. He was also previously the founder at the Palo Alto incubator, Archimedes Labs. Archimedes was the original incubator for TechCrunch and since 2011 has invested, accelerated or incubated many Silicon Valley startups including Around (sold to Miro), Millicast (Sold to Dolby), InFarm, Miles, Quixey; M.dot (sold to GoDaddy); chat.center; Loop Surveys; DownTown and Sunshine. Teare has a track record as a serial entrepreneur with big ideas and has achieved significant returns for investors.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Make An Example Of Them. Nervous elites make a move on UFC Conor McGregor in Ireland. Hobbesian realities. Morrissey's "National Front Disco." Javier Milei's literal chainsaw rally in Argentina. Mitt Romney shows his true Uniparty colors, praises Biden as "charming." Describing the "illusion of choice" between the political parties in America. DeSantis cash to endorser Bob Vander Plaats. Manipulating the evangelicals of Iowa. The strange fall of Ann Coulter. Unloved globalists can never show their true face, authenticity out of the question for them. Studying the big bold hair of nationalist political leaders Trump, Milei and Geert Wilders. Notice a pattern? Oscar Wilde: "It is only shallow people who don't judge by appearances." With Great Listener Calls.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

John Gray, author of The New Leviathans: Thoughts After Liberalism, joins The Realignment. Marshall and John discuss why he believes Hobbesian political realism is the only way of understanding the world of the 2020s, how faith in a liberal, well managed future peaked in the 1990s, why history could never truly "end," and how current events from Ukraine, Gaza, and the Pacific reflect could use a more self-aware, realistic, and disabused ethical approach.  Subscribe to The Realignment to access our exclusive Q&A episodes and support the show: https://realignment.supercast.com/REALIGNMENT NEWSLETTER: https://therealignment.substack.com/PURCHASE BOOKS AT OUR BOOKSHOP: https://bookshop.org/shop/therealignmentEmail Us: realignmentpod@gmail.comFoundation for American Innovation: https://www.thefai.org/posts/lincoln-becomes-fai

In this episode, we are joined by Dr. Megan Hyska to discuss her work on propaganda. She takes us through the history of the term propaganda, what makes propaganda a distinctly political concept, and how propaganda helps create or inhibit group agency. She shows why thinking that assumes propaganda can only work by manipulating our irrationality fails to help us see that propaganda can be effective even when it does not trick or deceive us. This is a great episode for those of you interested in the relationships between effective propaganda and social power. Also if you are Hobbesian just wait until you hear what Owen has to say!leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphilmeganhyska.comReferences:Christopher Lewis and Adaner Usmani, “The Injustice of Under-Policing in America,” American Journal of Law and Equality 2 (2022): 85-106Megan Hyska, (2021) “Propaganda, Irrationality, and Group Agency,” in The Routledge Handbook of Political Epistemology, eds. M. Hannon & J. de Ridder: 226-235.Megan Hyska, (2023) “Against Irrationalism in the Theory of Propaganda,” Journal of the American Philosophical Association, 9(2), 303-317.W.E.B. Du Bois, (1926) “Criteria for Negro Art” http://www.webdubois.org/dbCriteriaNArt.htmlAmia Srinivasan, (2016) “Philosophy and Ideology,” Theoria: An International Journal for Theory, History, and Foundations of Science 31(3): 371-380.Music:Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

David Gordon explores how Abraham Lincoln's stated view on secession was fundamentally Hobbesian, cynical, and violent. Original Article: "If at First You Don't Secede . . ." This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon.

David Gordon explores how Abraham Lincoln's stated view on secession was fundamentally Hobbesian, cynical, and violent. Original Article: "If at First You Don't Secede . . ." This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon.

When Thomas Hobbes published Leviathan in the 17th century, he argued that the state has absolute authority over its citizens. The principal that the state's monopoly of institutionalised violence keeps the peace is now widely accepted – but is this true, or is it the checks and balances on that power prevent conflict? Gerard Roland talks to Tim Phillips.

Christopher Hallenbrook and I discuss what he calls the "Hobbesian psychology" of the US gun debate.

Hobbesian Trap: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobbesian_trap?wprov=sfti1 Positivism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positivism?wprov=sfti1 Transvaluation of All Values: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transvaluation_of_values?wprov=sfti1 Infinite Game: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finite_and_Infinite_Games?wprov=sfti1 OODA Loop: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop?wprov=sfti1 The Sorcerer's Apprentice: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sorcerer's_Apprentice?wprov=sfti1 Political Ontology: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_ontology?wprov=sfti1 Air gap: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_gap_(networking)?wprov=sfti1

This longer-than-usual episode first goes over the origins of authority. It challenges conventional Marxist, Darwinian, and Hobbesian theories and their derivatives. It presents René Girard's theory of authority evolving out of the archaic role of the human sacrificial victim. Finally, it applies this insight to the modern era and explores its modern implications.

First Entry In A New Genre Order No Rights Reserved Ever

Professor Sheldon Solomon is the Ross Professor for Interdisciplinary Studies at Skidmore College, New York. Professor Sheldon is one of the true pioneers in the fields of social and evolutionary psychology. Best known for developing terror management theory (TMT), along with Jess Greenberg and Tom Pyszczynski, Sheldon and colleagues have revolutionised our understanding of how humans deal with their own sense of mortality and the often destructive effects of ‘death denial' on individual and collective behaviour. An engaging speaker and raconteur, in more recent years Sheldon has turned his attention to how death anxiety might be related to the anthropocene and the insatiable appetite of humans for more, whether that be cheap energy or lethal consumption. In this conversation we talk about why death denial is so pervasive, evidence underpinning TMT, death and the Hobbesian imperative in global politics, hope without optimism, Epicurus, Heidegger and much, much more. Solomon can be found here: https://www.skidmore.edu/psychology/faculty/solomon.php We discussed: ‘Death Denial in the Anthropocene' In the book: K. Zywert & Stephen Quilley (eds.), Health in the Anthropocene: Living Well on a Finite Planet (University of Toronto Press, 2020): https://utorontopress.com/9781487524142/health-in-the-anthropocene/ The Worm at the Core: On The Role of Death in Life (with Jeff Greenberg and Tom Pyszczynski) (Penguin/Random House, 2015): https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/170217/the-worm-at-the-core-by-sheldon-solomon-jeff-greenberg-and-tom-pyszczynski/ Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death (Free Press/Macmillan, 1973): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Denial_of_Death Flight from Death, 2003 documentary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_from_Death

You Brought The Trick Room To The Trick House You Tried To Trap Hobbes In The Hobbesian Trap House Y'all Steady Tryna Drown The Shark Ain't Gon' Do Nothin' But Piss Me Off You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Hangry And What You Call Your World Looks Like A Snack To My Boundless Appetite

This is a segment of episode 336 of Last Born In The Wilderness “All Cops Are Monsters: The Horror Of Police w/ Travis Linnemann.” Listen to the full episode: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/travis-linnemann Purchase a copy of 'The Horror of Police' from Bookshop or University of Minnesota Press: http://bit.ly/3GEmoLn / http://bit.ly/3EVW3ah Author Travis Linnemann joins me to discuss his recently released book 'The Horror of Police,' published by University of Minnesota Press. A good amount of ink has been spilt on the subject of policing — its historical origins; the oppressive and repressive role police play in the day-to-day lives of various marginalized communities; how “copaganda” shapes our collective perceptions of police and police work; and the numerous radical, reformist, and reactionary movements that have risen up against, or in defense of, police across the United States and the world. While Travis Linnemann examines these various subjects and perspectives in 'The Horror of Police,' he does so by delving into the ontological framework police operate within in by “drawing on the language and texts of horror fiction,” philosophy, and police procedurals in film and television. The abject stark horror police invoke, particularly when one recognizes that they are not the “monster fighters” they claim to be, but in fact monsters themselves, is to gaze into the Real — to see, unvarnished and naked, the brutal order police protect and uphold, by whatever means necessary. It is not merely a question of training or militarization or funding, while those individual issues certainly play a part. Police, as overt brute force agents of the liberal-democratic order, serve a crucial function in the collective psyche: as the “bad men” that keep the “other bad men from the door,” to use the words of Detective Rust Cohle from True Detective. As numerous media depictions of cops communicate and demonstrate, in order for police “protect and serve” society, they must occasionally (or frequently) step outside the law to protect and uphold the social order. Because, if the “thin blue line” were to break, civilization as we know it would collapse and descend into chaos — the Hobbesian state of nature would reign supreme. This is the ontology of the police and the order they protect. But, the horror we feel as we gaze into the Real may elicit a different view. It is, again, not that cops are the “monster fighters” they claim to be, but instead monsters themselves. Travis Linnemann is associate professor of sociology at Kansas State University. Working in the area of cultural criminology, Travis's research focuses on the wars on drugs and terror, US police violence and the ways that crime, violence and disorder are imagined and represented. He is author of 'Meth Wars: Police, Media, Power' and 'The Horror of Police'; coauthor of 'Media and Crime in the U.S.'; and coeditor of 'Ghost Criminology: The Afterlife of Crime and Punishment' and the journal 'Crime, Media, Culture.' WEBSITE: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness DONATE: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast / https://venmo.com/LastBornPodcast BOOK LIST: https://bookshop.org/shop/lastbornpodcast EPISODE 300: https://lastborninthewilderness.bandcamp.com BOOK: http://bit.ly/ORBITgr ATTACK & DETHRONE: https://anchor.fm/adgodcast DROP ME A LINE: Call (208) 918-2837 or http://bit.ly/LBWfiledrop EVERYTHING ELSE: https://linktr.ee/patterns.of.behavior

Author Travis Linnemann joins me to discuss his recently released book 'The Horror of Police,' published by University of Minnesota Press. A good amount of ink has been spilt on the subject of policing — its historical origins; the oppressive and repressive role police play in the day-to-day lives of various marginalized communities; how “copaganda” shapes our collective perceptions of police and police work; and the numerous radical, reformist, and reactionary movements that have risen up against, or in defense of, police across the United States and the world. While Travis Linnemann examines these various subjects and perspectives in 'The Horror of Police,' he does so by delving into the ontological framework police operate within in by “drawing on the language and texts of horror fiction,” philosophy, and police procedurals in film and television. The abject stark horror police invoke, particularly when one recognizes that they are not the “monster fighters” they claim to be, but in fact monsters themselves, is to gaze into the Real — to see, unvarnished and naked, the brutal order police protect and uphold, by whatever means necessary. It is not merely a question of training or militarization or funding, while those individual issues certainly play a part. Police, as overt brute force agents of the liberal-democratic order, serve a crucial function in the collective psyche: as the “bad men” that keep the “other bad men from the door,” to use the words of Detective Rust Cohle from True Detective. As numerous media depictions of cops communicate and demonstrate, in order for police “protect and serve” society, they must occasionally (or frequently) step outside the law to protect and uphold the social order. Because, if the “thin blue line” were to break, civilization as we know it would collapse and descend into chaos — the Hobbesian state of nature would reign supreme. This is the ontology of the police and the order they protect. But, the horror we feel as we gaze into the Real may elicit a different view. It is, again, not that cops are the “monster fighters” they claim to be, but instead monsters themselves. Travis Linnemann is associate professor of sociology at Kansas State University. Working in the area of cultural criminology, Travis's research focuses on the wars on drugs and terror, US police violence and the ways that crime, violence and disorder are imagined and represented. He is author of 'Meth Wars: Police, Media, Power' and 'The Horror of Police'; coauthor of 'Media and Crime in the U.S.'; and coeditor of 'Ghost Criminology: The Afterlife of Crime and Punishment' and the journal 'Crime, Media, Culture.' Episode Notes: - Purchase a copy of 'The Horror of Police' from Bookshop or University of Minnesota Press: http://bit.ly/3GEmoLn / http://bit.ly/3EVW3ah - Learn more about Travis's work: https://www.travislinnemann.com - Follow him on Twitter: https://twitter.com/crimemann - The song featured is “B538” by Nick Vander from the album Kodama (Nowaki's Selection), used with permission by the artist. Listen and purchase at: https://nickvander.bandcamp.com WEBSITE: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness DONATE: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast / https://venmo.com/LastBornPodcast BOOK LIST: https://bookshop.org/shop/lastbornpodcast EPISODE 300: https://lastborninthewilderness.bandcamp.com BOOK: http://bit.ly/ORBITgr ATTACK & DETHRONE: https://anchor.fm/adgodcast DROP ME A LINE: Call (208) 918-2837 or http://bit.ly/LBWfiledrop EVERYTHING ELSE: https://linktr.ee/patterns.of.behavior

Hello Interactors,Last week's post on Karl Marx introduced issues he had with the Scottish philosopher and so-called father of economics, Adam Smith. I found myself digging into Smith's life and work before his contributions to economics. Which, as history shows, was barely recognized until 1942. His name is now more popular than ever. As interactors, you're special individuals self-selected to be a part of an evolutionary journey. You're also members of an attentive community so I welcome your participation.Please leave your comments below or email me directly.Now let's go…MAKING SENSE OF THE SENSESVisiting his grandfather in Strathenry, the four-year boy wandered to the banks of the River Leven. He was a weak boy, shy, and prone to talking to himself. He'd lost his father three months before he was born and was being raised by his mother, whom he adored, alone.When the boy did not return to his grandfather's home, he and his mother went looking. Surely in a panic assuming the worst, they soon encountered a man who had just witnessed something suspicious. He had come across a group of nomadic people heading toward a nearby town that included a woman struggling to hold onto a screaming child.A search crew was dispatched immediately. And there, in the town of Leslie, nearly a mile from Strathenry, the woman was spotted with the boy. As the crew approached the woman, she dropped the screaming child who ran to his saviors. The crew then returned the boy to his mother. He never left her side again. He did, however, like keeping to himself until the day he died. And he never stopped talking to himself either. It's hard to know if he was traumatized by that event, but it didn't stop him from becoming one of Scotland's most famous academics. Had that group of nomads managed to kidnap that young boy, the founding father of economics would not have been Adam Smith.Smith was born in 1723, entered school in at age six, and began learning Latin as early as 1733, age ten. He was sent to one of the best secondary schools in Scotland, the Burgh School in Kirkcaldy. Kirkcaldy was a port town with a population of 1500 people. Though Smith was shy and kept to himself, he was nonetheless engaged and observant. He kept track of the town's activities and was familiar with some of its local characters. The town was home to shippers and traders and thus full of tall tales from journey men and smugglers.It also had multiple nail manufacturers that young Adam liked to visit. It was there and then he was first exposed to division of labor and how the value of labor was compensated. Nailers, he observed, were paid in nails which they would then exchange for other goods at local stores. Perhaps these observations, and his high marks in mathematics and classics, were the first seeds to grow as he entered the University of Glasgow in 1737 at the ripe age of 14.Smith continued his studies in mathematics and Latin but added Greek and Moral Philosophy. This was the glimmering beginnings of the enlightenment and he himself was about to be enlightened. His math professor was Robert Simson, an eccentric man made famous through Europe as the “Restorer of Grecian Geometry”, as his tombstone reads. The Simson line in geometry is named after him and he also noted a curious relationship among Fibonacci numbers. As the values increase, the ratio of adjacent numbers approaches the golden ratio of 1.6180... But his most influential professor was Thomas Hutcheson, his Moral Philosophy instructor – a discipline Smith went on to become famous for himself.But when Smith was in school, Hutcheson was the popular one in Britain. He was one of Britain's premiere moralists and key figure in a long line of Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, including his professor, Thomas Locke. He was also the first professor in Glasgow to lecture in the native tongue of his students and not in Latin. This alone made him an easy target among conservative faculty, but it was what he was teaching that really rattled them.Hutcheson believed, contrary to the established and prevailing belief, human action does not descend from the will of God, but from one's own mind. And even then, we have little to no control over our own actions but are instead influenced by our complex interactions with people and place.He believed we form images and beliefs in our mind by sensing the environment around us through our five physical senses. We then formulate ideas which lead to feelings either pleasure or pain. This, in turn, leads to the creation of other senses internal to our mind – though still interrelated and interdependent on our five external senses. He believed there are many mental senses generated, but three emerged as particularly notable – especially as we learn more of Adam Smith's own philosophies.The first is a public sense for the happiness of others and the pleasure it brings, but also the sadness that comes with observing misery in others. The second is the moral sense upon reflection of our own good or evil, and perceived good or evil in others, and the feelings of pleasure or pain that ensue. And the third is a sense of honor that comes from the admiration from others who observe the good in us for the positive actions we may have taken – the very actions of which are necessary for sensing the pleasure that comes when seeing others are happy.Hutcheson observed these emotions are not willed. We cannot will ourselves into happiness, but we can will ourselves to take actions that create public conditions that enable feelings of pleasure to arise. These pleasurable feelings arise, as a moral sense, out of complex interactions among others, to instill a public sense of pleasure, which upon reflection of our own behavior instills pleasure in us as a sense of honor. Good behavior toward ourselves and toward others makes us and others feel good. We are all then rewarded with a sense of honor which in turn motivates more good behavior.A SENTIMENTAL MOOD FROM A PRUDE DUDEHutcheson's ideas shock the religious establishment who believed goodness can only come through getting in the good graces with God through worship. One 19th-century biographer noted Hutcheson was “bitterly attacked by the older generation outside the walls of the College as a ‘new light' fraught with dangers to all accepted beliefs, and at the same time worshipped like an idol by the younger generation inside the walls, who were thankful for the light he brought them, and had no quarrel with it for being new.”His views were also in opposition to another influential philosophical figure during these times, Thomas Hobbes, who believed our will to act was rooted not in altruism, but in selfishness and egoism. Though Hutcheson admitted there is virtue in tempered self-love, taken to an extreme could erode not only one's moral sense, but also public sense and a reciprocal sense of honor. Clearly, Hobbesian beliefs made their way into colonial America and are present in cultural norms and beliefs today, especially in the neoliberal tradition that helped pull Smith, and the single occurrence of the words ‘invisible hand', from obscurity.But many of Hutcheson's teachings also made their way to colonial America. His book, Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue, was used as a textbook at Harvard in the 1730s. It included familiar U.S. declaration of independence constructs, like “unalienable rights are essential Limitations in all Governments” (his italics) and the public has a right to resist oppressive governments. The professor of Moral Philosophy at the College of Philadelphia, Francis Alison, was a student of Hutcheson and three signers of the U.S. Declaration of Independence were Alison's students, Thomas McKean, George Read, and James Smith.But Hutcheson's most famous student became Adam Smith. And his fame and impact are attributed to the teachings and reading of Francis Hutcheson. Smith's primary contribution to philosophy extended Hutcheson's ideas of ‘senses' in his book, Theory of Moral Sentiments, that was written in 1759, seventeen years before his more popular economic treatise, Wealth of Nations. Smith believed that when we see another suffer, it makes an ‘impression of our own senses' by relating to a similar situation in which we've been in. He writes, “we enter as it were into his body, and become in some measure the same person”.These feelings of sympathy are expanded on in later revisions of his theories to address injustice. If one witnesses an act of injustice, one feels sympathy with the victim but not with the perpetrator. This is grounds for punishment against the perpetrator. Smith writes, “All men, even the most stupid and unthinking, abhor fraud, perfidy, and injustice, and delight to see them punished.” He continues that as true as this may be, there's a tendency not to attribute this to a necessary condition of a society. He adds, “But few men have reflected upon the necessity of justice to the existence of society, how obvious soever that necessity may appear to be.”This sentiment was directed toward politicians (or statesmen) and industrialists (or projectors, people who build projects) in a document that predates Wealth of Nations but contains its central themes. Smith writes, “Man is generally considered by statesmen and projectors as the materials of a sort of political mechanics. Projectors disturb nature in the course of her operations on human affairs, and it requires no more than to leave her alone and give her fair play in the pursuit of her ends that she may establish her own designs…Little else is required to carry a state to the highest degrees of affluence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice; all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.”Smith no doubt was a free market and free trade advocate, but also preached modesty, temperance, and justice. And he routinely ran to the defense of those with lesser means or who were victims of injustice. For example, when wealthy consumers of foreign garments sought Smith's support in abolishing a ban on imported yarn, he surprised many by supporting the embargo. And it wasn't the flax farmers or domestic yarn corporations he was protecting, but the women living and spinning yarn in their homes scattered across the country.And in the Wealth of Nations, he defends the right for poor people in cities to earn enough to by clothes and shoes fit enough to blend in with society. He writes, “But in the present times, through the greater part of Europe, a creditable day-labourer would be ashamed to appear in public without a linen shirt…in the same manner, has rendered leather shoes a necessity of life in England. The poorest creditable person of either sex would be ashamed to appear in public without them.”Smith also suggested sumptuary laws, taxes on consumable high-end goods, to limit luxurious or immodest behavior. He writes, “The high price of such commodities does not necessarily diminish the ability of the inferior ranks of people to bring up families. Upon the sober and industrious poor, taxes upon such commodities act as sumptuary laws, and dispose them either to moderate, or to refrain altogether from the use of superfluities which they can no longer easily afford.”For an economy and a society to function well, Smith believed, one must put themselves in the shoes of others and act in accordance to bring about the three internal senses Hutcheson spoke of: a public sense for the happiness of others, a moral sense to reflect on the good feelings that come with doing good things, and a sense of honor that comes when others admire you for your good intentions and actions.WAS THE SENTIMENTALIST AN ENVIRONMENTALIST?Smith's insight into markets, especially in the dawning of the industrial age, was that technology helped to reduce the price of goods making them affordable to more and more people. This increased the flow of money to manufacturers to buy more capital goods, like machines and energy, thus reducing the need for, and time needed to, produce handcrafted goods. This created a win-win situation for the society at large so long as people cooperated and were sympathetic to each other's needs through trust in each other, business, and the government.This was not something Smith believed should be left to a free-wheeling, laissez-fare market economy free of interventions. Smith believed three conditions were necessary for an effective economy and with each he paired a moral value:* State-Justice: “Commerce and manufacturers” he wrote, “can seldom flourish long in any state which does not enjoy a regular administration of justice…” This is achieved, he believed, through the administration of laws that inspire security through enforceable regulation and redistribution of tax derived revenues. For Smith, trust in government is a requisite for a healthy economy.* Market-Liberty: “Trade opens a new market…” The “causes seem to be: the liberty of trade…notwithstanding some restraints…”, he said. The freedom to create, market, and compete on value or price, comes with prudence and protection from monopolies. He wrote, “It is thus that the single advantage which the monopoly procures to a single order of men is in many different ways hurtful to the general interest of the country.”* Community-Benevolence: It is here Smith relies on his philosophy of ‘moral sentiments” and a shared commitment to each other across a community. To do so, he, albeit naively, admits, “many reputable rules and maxims for the conduct of human life, must have been laid down and approved of by common consent…” The Dutch economic pluralist, Irene van Severan, reminds us that social economists may refer to this as ‘group cohesiveness' or ‘social cohesion', institutional economists might call it ‘the management of common pool resources', and some feminists economists might simply call it ‘caring'.There is much debate on whether Smith would attribute the same care and moral sentiments to other animals and the natural environment. I suspect he would have. I would imagine over exploitation or seemingly extravagant indulgences to benefit a few, or even many, would have been met with questions of reciprocity, modesty, benevolence, and prudence. He would have walked in the shoes of those hurt by economic, environmental, or social exploits and demanded justice be served.At the same time, Smith encouraged industry, consumerism, and growth, albeit restrained, yet all three are the engines of our environmental demise. Could it be Smith's social cohesion is an unachievable ideal beyond groups of a certain size? Perhaps free trade among industrious people has its limits beyond a certain scale or application of technology. Then again, he may look at the innovation curves of renewable energy, signs of an invigorated green economy, and declare the liberty of market competition is again leading to a better future for all. It also wouldn't be lost on him that it was the state funded subsidies that helped feed that momentum. At the same time, he likely would have been screaming for a carbon and luxury goods tax long ago.I think there are lessons to be drawn from Smith, and his mentor Hutcheson, that could be used to frame a green, moral, or circular economy, just as the neoliberals from the 1940s to now drew from Smith for the economic systems we currently have.I do wonder if that kidnapping incident as a four-year-old indeed scared him into a need to feel secure. He never married and lived with his mom, in the same house he grew up in, until the day she and he died. I can imagine he must have ‘walked in the shoes' of those poor nomadic people as an adult and surely felt moral sentiments – maybe even empathy. He might have even imagined himself walking alongside them had he been captured. He may have, in his own words, “entered as it were into his body, and become in some measure the same person”.Did that incident motivate him to pursue the path he did, to ensure his own fate, and to devise philosophies and theories that allowed for the least suffering of the most people? He envisioned, as he wrote in Wealth of Nations, that “No society can surely be flourishing and happy of which by far the greater part of the numbers are poor and miserable.” That vision may be naïve, and perhaps not be achievable, but the path toward it is a worthy moral sentiment. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit interplace.io

In this episode, G3 welcomes the one and only Lundy Wright of Weiss to talk about all of the talk around a Fed Pivot. Has it started? When will it start? What are the signs that a pivot may be coming? What does a pivot even mean? G3 checks in with Lundy to get his thoughts on these and several other related issues. And after the discussion is over, instead of pivoting out of your chair, please stick around to hear important disclosures at the end of the episode. Timestamps:● Was the messaging from the last FOMC meeting incongruent? [1:43]● What is the so-called Fed Pivot anyway? [4:24]● How much does Thursday's CPI print matter to the Fed at this point? [8:43]● Lundy's view on why rallies in risk should be faded.? [13:20]● The Hobbesian choice between a “doom loop” of tightening rates or capitulating to another round of QE to finance America's growing deficit? [18:40]● What does “logical hopscotch” mean? [21:05]● Who is Nick Timiraos and why is he worth paying attention to? [24:17]Disclosures: This podcast and associated content (collectively, the “Post”) are provided to you by Weiss Multi-Strategy Advisers LLC (“Weiss”). The views expressed in the Post are for informational purposes only and are subject to change without notice. Information in this Post has been developed internally and is based on market conditions as of the date of the recording from sources believed to be reliable. Nothing in this Post should be construed as investment, legal, tax, or other advice and should not be viewed as a recommendation to purchase or sell any security or adopt any investment strategy. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. You should consult your own advisers regarding business, legal, tax, or other matters concerning investments. Any health-related information shared on the podcast is not intended as medical advice or for use in self-diagnosis or treatment. Please consult a qualified healthcare professional before acting upon any health-related information on the podcast. Weiss has no control over information at any external site hyperlinked in this Post. Weiss makes no representation concerning and is not responsible for the quality, content, nature, or reliability of any hyperlinked site and has included hyperlinks only as a convenience. The inclusion of any external hyperlink does not imply any endorsement, investigation, verification, or ongoing monitoring by Weiss of any information in any hyperlinked site. In no event shall Weiss be responsible for your use of a hyperlinked site. This is not intended to be an offer or solicitation of any security. Please visit www.gweiss.com to review related disclosures and learn more about Weiss.

Josh Barnett, who is known for his work in MMA and as the former UFC Heavyweight Champion joins Lexman to talk about delusion and chromatography. They discuss how these Hobbesian concepts are intertwined in his work as an artist

“All my life I've heard spirited advocacy for the dialogue between the Church and the wider culture, but this call has come, almost exclusively, from the Church and not from the culture,” Fr. Robert Barron said in his talk entitled “From Correlation to Assimilation: A New Model for the Church-Culture Dialogue” given to the students and faculty of Christendom College on April 20. “It is this one-way quality of the conversation that is, I submit to you, problematic.”Fr. Robert Barron, a prominent theologian and podcasting priest, is one of the world's great and most innovative teachers of Catholicism. His global media ministry called Word on Fire has a simple but revolutionary mission—to evangelize the culture. His numerous books and essays serve as critical educational and inspirational tools for seminarians, priests, parishioners and young people worldwide.Barron highlights problems within American culture as well its redeemable strengths. Problems which the Church encounters in communicating with American culture include an Hobbesian individualism, the notion of freedom as choice, and the privatization of religion.

Consider the larger pattern. Putin invades Ukraine. Trump refuses to concede and promotes his Big Lie. Rightwing politicians in America and Europe fuel white Christian nationalism. Rightwing television pundits encourage racism and spur bigotry toward immigrants. Police kill innocent Black people with impunity. Powerful men sexually harass and abuse women. Politicians target LGBTQ youth. CEOs who are raking in record profits and pay give workers meager wages and fire them for unionizing. The richest men in the world own the most influential media platforms. Billionaires make large campaign donations (bribes) so lawmakers won't raise their taxes.All are abuses of power. All are occurring at a time when power is concentrated in fewer hands. Throughout history, the central struggle of civilization has been against brutality. The state of nature is a continuous war in which only the fittest survive — where lives are “nasty, brutish, and short,” in the words of English philosopher Thomas Hobbes. Without norms, rules, and laws preventing the stronger from attacking or exploiting the weaker, none of us is safe. We all live in fear. Even the most powerful live in fear of being attacked or deposed.Civilization is the opposite of this state of nature. A civil society doesn't allow the strong to brutalize the weak. Our job — the responsibility of all who seek a decent society — is to move as far from a state of nature as possible. Certain inequalities of power are expected, even in a civil society. Some people are bigger and stronger than others. Some are quicker of mind and body. Some have more forceful personalities. Some have fewer scruples. Some inequalities of income and wealth may be necessary to encourage hard work and inventiveness, from which everyone benefits.But when inequalities become too wide, they invite abuses. Without laws and norms that protect the weaker, the stronger will abuse their positions of power. Such abuses invite further abuses, until society degenerates into a Hobbesian survival of the most powerful. People with great wealth or celebrity; people who occupy high positions in government, business, the media, or the church; people whose race, ethnicity, religion, or gender is dominant; people who command vast armies — such people may be tempted to use their power to demean, harm, or even annihilate weaker people. Unless they are stopped, an entire society — even the world — can descend into chaos. Every time the stronger bully the weaker, the social fabric is tested. If bullying is not contained, the fabric unwinds.Some posit a moral equivalence between those who seek social justice and those who want to protect individual liberty, between “left” and “right.” But there is no moral equivalence between bullies and the bullied, between tyranny and democracy, between brutality and decency — no “balance” between social justice and individual liberty. It is a false equivalence and a false choice. No individual can be free in a society devoid of justice. There can be no liberty where brutality reigns. The struggle for social justice is the most basic struggle of all because it defines how far a civilization has come from a Hobbesian survival of the most powerful. Defending voting rights or LGBTQ rights or women's rights is not the moral equivalent of attacking them. Coming to the assistance of refugee children is not morally equivalent to putting them in cages. Prosecuting police who kill innocent Black people is not one side of an equally respectable stance defending the freedom of police to kill innocent Black people. Fighting racism is not of equal moral value to fueling racism. Seeking stronger safety nets for those in need is not on an equal moral footing with seeking to unravel safety nets. Championing stronger unions is not just the other side of pushing for weaker unions. Demanding higher taxes on billionaires is not morally equivalent to demanding lower taxes on them.We inhabit a society and a world growing more unequal, in which political and economic power is becoming ever more concentrated. To claim that “both sides” — both the more powerful and the weaker — have the same moral standing is to avert one's eyes to this reality. Lobbyists for large corporations, publicists for the wealthy, lawmakers for the privileged, pundits for the powerful, celebrity peddlers of racism and xenophobia — none deserves equal space in the public square to those fighting against abuses of the powerful. The powerful already have the largest megaphones and the deepest pockets. To allow the richest to own the means by which we receive the truth is to enable oligarchy. To allow the worst demagogues free rein is to open wide the gates to tyranny. Our duty is to stop brutality. Our responsibility is to hold the powerful accountable. Our moral obligation is to protect the vulnerable. Putin must be stopped. Trump must be held accountable. Rightwing politicians who encourage white Christian nationalism must be condemned. Celebrity pundits who fuel racism and xenophobia must be denounced and defunded. Police who kill innocent Black people must be brought to justice. Powerful men who sexually harass or abuse women must be prosecuted. CEOs who treat their employees badly must be exposed and censored. Billionaires who bribe lawmakers to cut their taxes or exempt them from regulations must be penalized, and lawmakers who accept such bribes must be sanctioned. Norms and laws must prevent such brutality. This is what civilization demands. This is why the fight is worth it. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robertreich.substack.com/subscribe

Corruption and ineffectiveness are often expected of public servants in developing countries. However, some groups within these states are distinctly more effective and public oriented than the rest. Why? Patchwork Leviathan (Princeton UP, 2020) explains how a few spectacularly effective state organizations manage to thrive amid general institutional weakness and succeed against impressive odds. Drawing on the Hobbesian image of the state as Leviathan, Erin Metz McDonnell argues that many seemingly weak states actually have a wide range of administrative capacities. Such states are in fact patchworks sewn loosely together from scarce resources into the semblance of unity. McDonnell demonstrates that when the human, cognitive, and material resources of bureaucracy are rare, it is critically important how they are distributed. Too often, scarce bureaucratic resources are scattered throughout the state, yielding little effect. McDonnell reveals how a sufficient concentration of resources clustered within particular pockets of a state can be transformative, enabling distinctively effective organizations to emerge from a sea of ineffectiveness. Patchwork Leviathan offers a comprehensive analysis of successful statecraft in institutionally challenging environments, drawing on cases from contemporary Ghana and Nigeria, mid-twentieth-century Kenya and Brazil, and China in the early twentieth century. Based on nearly two years of pioneering fieldwork in West Africa, this incisive book explains how these highly effective pockets differ from the Western bureaucracies on which so much state and organizational theory is based, providing a fresh answer to why well-funded global capacity-building reforms fail—and how they can do better. Sebastián Rojas Cabal is a Ph.D. student in the Sociology Department at Princeton University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Corruption and ineffectiveness are often expected of public servants in developing countries. However, some groups within these states are distinctly more effective and public oriented than the rest. Why? Patchwork Leviathan (Princeton UP, 2020) explains how a few spectacularly effective state organizations manage to thrive amid general institutional weakness and succeed against impressive odds. Drawing on the Hobbesian image of the state as Leviathan, Erin Metz McDonnell argues that many seemingly weak states actually have a wide range of administrative capacities. Such states are in fact patchworks sewn loosely together from scarce resources into the semblance of unity. McDonnell demonstrates that when the human, cognitive, and material resources of bureaucracy are rare, it is critically important how they are distributed. Too often, scarce bureaucratic resources are scattered throughout the state, yielding little effect. McDonnell reveals how a sufficient concentration of resources clustered within particular pockets of a state can be transformative, enabling distinctively effective organizations to emerge from a sea of ineffectiveness. Patchwork Leviathan offers a comprehensive analysis of successful statecraft in institutionally challenging environments, drawing on cases from contemporary Ghana and Nigeria, mid-twentieth-century Kenya and Brazil, and China in the early twentieth century. Based on nearly two years of pioneering fieldwork in West Africa, this incisive book explains how these highly effective pockets differ from the Western bureaucracies on which so much state and organizational theory is based, providing a fresh answer to why well-funded global capacity-building reforms fail—and how they can do better. Sebastián Rojas Cabal is a Ph.D. student in the Sociology Department at Princeton University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

Corruption and ineffectiveness are often expected of public servants in developing countries. However, some groups within these states are distinctly more effective and public oriented than the rest. Why? Patchwork Leviathan (Princeton UP, 2020) explains how a few spectacularly effective state organizations manage to thrive amid general institutional weakness and succeed against impressive odds. Drawing on the Hobbesian image of the state as Leviathan, Erin Metz McDonnell argues that many seemingly weak states actually have a wide range of administrative capacities. Such states are in fact patchworks sewn loosely together from scarce resources into the semblance of unity. McDonnell demonstrates that when the human, cognitive, and material resources of bureaucracy are rare, it is critically important how they are distributed. Too often, scarce bureaucratic resources are scattered throughout the state, yielding little effect. McDonnell reveals how a sufficient concentration of resources clustered within particular pockets of a state can be transformative, enabling distinctively effective organizations to emerge from a sea of ineffectiveness. Patchwork Leviathan offers a comprehensive analysis of successful statecraft in institutionally challenging environments, drawing on cases from contemporary Ghana and Nigeria, mid-twentieth-century Kenya and Brazil, and China in the early twentieth century. Based on nearly two years of pioneering fieldwork in West Africa, this incisive book explains how these highly effective pockets differ from the Western bureaucracies on which so much state and organizational theory is based, providing a fresh answer to why well-funded global capacity-building reforms fail—and how they can do better. Sebastián Rojas Cabal is a Ph.D. student in the Sociology Department at Princeton University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

Corruption and ineffectiveness are often expected of public servants in developing countries. However, some groups within these states are distinctly more effective and public oriented than the rest. Why? Patchwork Leviathan (Princeton UP, 2020) explains how a few spectacularly effective state organizations manage to thrive amid general institutional weakness and succeed against impressive odds. Drawing on the Hobbesian image of the state as Leviathan, Erin Metz McDonnell argues that many seemingly weak states actually have a wide range of administrative capacities. Such states are in fact patchworks sewn loosely together from scarce resources into the semblance of unity. McDonnell demonstrates that when the human, cognitive, and material resources of bureaucracy are rare, it is critically important how they are distributed. Too often, scarce bureaucratic resources are scattered throughout the state, yielding little effect. McDonnell reveals how a sufficient concentration of resources clustered within particular pockets of a state can be transformative, enabling distinctively effective organizations to emerge from a sea of ineffectiveness. Patchwork Leviathan offers a comprehensive analysis of successful statecraft in institutionally challenging environments, drawing on cases from contemporary Ghana and Nigeria, mid-twentieth-century Kenya and Brazil, and China in the early twentieth century. Based on nearly two years of pioneering fieldwork in West Africa, this incisive book explains how these highly effective pockets differ from the Western bureaucracies on which so much state and organizational theory is based, providing a fresh answer to why well-funded global capacity-building reforms fail—and how they can do better. Sebastián Rojas Cabal is a Ph.D. student in the Sociology Department at Princeton University.

Corruption and ineffectiveness are often expected of public servants in developing countries. However, some groups within these states are distinctly more effective and public oriented than the rest. Why? Patchwork Leviathan (Princeton UP, 2020) explains how a few spectacularly effective state organizations manage to thrive amid general institutional weakness and succeed against impressive odds. Drawing on the Hobbesian image of the state as Leviathan, Erin Metz McDonnell argues that many seemingly weak states actually have a wide range of administrative capacities. Such states are in fact patchworks sewn loosely together from scarce resources into the semblance of unity. McDonnell demonstrates that when the human, cognitive, and material resources of bureaucracy are rare, it is critically important how they are distributed. Too often, scarce bureaucratic resources are scattered throughout the state, yielding little effect. McDonnell reveals how a sufficient concentration of resources clustered within particular pockets of a state can be transformative, enabling distinctively effective organizations to emerge from a sea of ineffectiveness. Patchwork Leviathan offers a comprehensive analysis of successful statecraft in institutionally challenging environments, drawing on cases from contemporary Ghana and Nigeria, mid-twentieth-century Kenya and Brazil, and China in the early twentieth century. Based on nearly two years of pioneering fieldwork in West Africa, this incisive book explains how these highly effective pockets differ from the Western bureaucracies on which so much state and organizational theory is based, providing a fresh answer to why well-funded global capacity-building reforms fail—and how they can do better. Sebastián Rojas Cabal is a Ph.D. student in the Sociology Department at Princeton University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/public-policy

Corruption and ineffectiveness are often expected of public servants in developing countries. However, some groups within these states are distinctly more effective and public oriented than the rest. Why? Patchwork Leviathan (Princeton UP, 2020) explains how a few spectacularly effective state organizations manage to thrive amid general institutional weakness and succeed against impressive odds. Drawing on the Hobbesian image of the state as Leviathan, Erin Metz McDonnell argues that many seemingly weak states actually have a wide range of administrative capacities. Such states are in fact patchworks sewn loosely together from scarce resources into the semblance of unity. McDonnell demonstrates that when the human, cognitive, and material resources of bureaucracy are rare, it is critically important how they are distributed. Too often, scarce bureaucratic resources are scattered throughout the state, yielding little effect. McDonnell reveals how a sufficient concentration of resources clustered within particular pockets of a state can be transformative, enabling distinctively effective organizations to emerge from a sea of ineffectiveness. Patchwork Leviathan offers a comprehensive analysis of successful statecraft in institutionally challenging environments, drawing on cases from contemporary Ghana and Nigeria, mid-twentieth-century Kenya and Brazil, and China in the early twentieth century. Based on nearly two years of pioneering fieldwork in West Africa, this incisive book explains how these highly effective pockets differ from the Western bureaucracies on which so much state and organizational theory is based, providing a fresh answer to why well-funded global capacity-building reforms fail—and how they can do better. Sebastián Rojas Cabal is a Ph.D. student in the Sociology Department at Princeton University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/law

Author and economist Germinal G. Van joins Darnell & Joel to discuss the economics and politics of Africa. Their conversation covers the following topics: Principles of classical liberals Democratic vs aristocratic systems Wealth redistribution Role of constitutions Colonization of settlement vs exploitation Lockean vs Hobbesian political philosophies Pan-Africanism https://linktr.ee/sixcentsreport Support us at buymeacoffee.com/SixCentsReport Produced by Madden Mitchell Media Song from our intro: Sho Baraka - Pedantic Related Episodes: #149 & #132  References: Classical Liberalism in Africa: A Manifesto The Case for Free-Market Liberalism in Africa Black Love White Lies Germinal G. Van contact info: https://www.germinalgvan.com/ YouTube Instagram LinkedIn Give us your two cents via: Facebook Twitter sixcentsreport@gmail.com

McConnell Center Director Dr. Gary Gregg and Dr. Susan Hanssen, Associate Professor of History and Chair of the History Department at the University of Dallas, explore the roots of church and state in American order. The two discuss the history of 17th century Britain and the English Civil War, Hobbesian and Lockean political theory, and more. https://mcconnellcenter.libsyn.com/58-the-roots-of-american-order-the-constitution-of-church-and-state-with-dr-susan-hanssen

Political Theorist Ross Carroll takes the reader through Enlightenment conversations about the use of ridicule and laughter in politics and political engagement in his new book, Uncivil Mirth: Ridicule in Enlightenment Britain (Princeton UP, 2021) explores, as a framework, two schools of thought on the place of ridicule in political engagement, Thomas Hobbes and those who took their approach to understanding human nature from Hobbes, and the Third Earl of Shaftsbury, and those who followed his arguments. Carroll dives into these two approaches to the use of ridicule, unpacking not only the ideas around how ridicule can be used in politics, but also how it might be managed appropriately, noting the dichotomous approach to ridicule as part of the Age of Enlightenment and Reason. The Hobbesian school was concerned with the corrosive impact of the use of ridicule since it can communicate contempt. The Shaftsbury school thought that ridicule could be used in an emancipatory way, as another means of engaging with political opponents while also undercutting the political claims of those opponents. Carroll traces these debates and those involved in them, while also providing a fascinating “case study” of the use of ridicule by Scottish Abolitionists. This particular chapter, focusing on the work of these polemicists, explores their use of ridicule “to expose defenders of African slavery as not merely mistaken but contemptable, and their arguments as absurd.” (Carroll, Uncivil Mirth, p. 152) This was an ambitious political project that took ridicule as the weapon or tool to attack the Atlantic slave trade and the immorality of slavery. Uncivil Mirth concludes with Mary Wollstonecraft's commentary on the use of ridicule in terms of political education, and her own use of it in deconstructing sentimental teachings to women. There is a tension at the heart of the argument about ridicule and politics, namely that it can and often does make the political personal and the personal political. Thus, long before Second Wave Feminism would coin the adage that the “personal is political,” the British and Scottish Enlightenment thinkers and political activists were wrestling with how to manage the personal and the political, especially through the use of ridicule and laughter in politics. Lilly J. Goren is professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-editor of the award winning book, Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (University Press of Kentucky, 2012), as well as co-editor of Mad Men and Politics: Nostalgia and the Remaking of Modern America (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015). Email her comments at lgoren@carrollu.edu or tweet to @gorenlj.

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: On Stateless Societies, published by Martin Sustrik on December 27, 2021 on LessWrong. Acemoglu & Robinson in their book The Narrow Corridor use Tiv people as an example of a stateless society. The statelessness among Tiv was achieved by penalizing or eliminating those who grew successful or powerful enough to become an eventual condensation point for creation of a state. The traditional mechanism for doing so was accusing such people of witchcraft. This, on one hand, left Tiv without the state and the associated oppression, but, on the other hand, kept them dirt-poor. That sounds all right on the theoretical level, but what made me really visualize the process was a story about how Shaka Zulu, the builder of the Zulu Kingdom, broke the power of stateless elements in the traditional Zulu society. When a hammerhead crane flew over his kraal and a porcupine wandered into it, when a crow perched on a fence and began to utter human words he summoned a team of witch doctors led by a woman called Nobela: The Zulus were lined up and Nobela and here associates began "smelling out" the witches who had brought on the evil omens. They picked on prosperous people. One had grown rich through frugality. Another had put cattle manure on his lands as fertilizer, producing a bountiful harvest much greater than his neighbors'. Yet another was a fine stock breeder who had picked the best bulls and taken great care of his stock and as a result had seen a prodigious expansion of his herds. Shaka took offense, accused the witch doctors of false accusations and demanded that two of them must die in compensation. The witch doctors panicked and asked Shaka for protection. He agreed, conditional on that they "won't cheat any more". That way he broke the power of the institution of witch doctors. Another interesting data point about stateless societies is this paper by Lowes, Nunn, Robinson and Weigel (yes, the same Robinson as in The Narrow Corridor book). In turns out that in Congo there is a set of tribes which are ethnically and culturally pretty homogeneous, except that while all of them are historically stateless, one tribe managed to establish a state. The researchers made the people from this area play different economic games and find out that people with a state are less cooperative than stateless people. This is a single study and may eventually prove to be non-reproducible, but do have a look at the paper: The methodology is pretty rigorous and the experiments are cleverly devised. Moreover, I am inclined to believe the results just because how genuinely confused the researchers seem to be. (They have done the experiment with the expectation that people with the state will be more cooperative.) The above has challenged my implicit assumption that stateless societies are in the permanent Hobbesian "warre". That they are, basically, failed states. But from the above it looks like that stateless societies aren't kept around by the failure to coordinate. In fact, they survive by actively cooperating to prevent the hierarchical structures to emerge. From that point of view, it's rather the state that is the result of coordination failure. For whatever reason the traditional mechanisms of coordination suddenly break and the resulting societal collapse is what we refer to as a "state". In should be said that given how oppressive many early states have been it's hard to blame the Tiv for wanting to avoid it. The approach, interestingly, proved useful also in the colonial era. From Wikipedia: These socio-political arrangements caused great frustration to British attempts to incorporate the population into Colonial Nigeria and establish an administration on the lower Benue. The strategy of indirect rule, which the British felt to be highly successful in regards to ruling over the Hausa and F...

The problem of the rule of law is inescapable in any society - and even more especially in the context of economic development. Policies that promote prosperity cannot be devoid of considerations for the rights of people who make up the society and the economy, regardless of all technocratic pretensions otherwise. Adam Smith himself stated that economic prosperity thus requires ''a tolerable administration of justice''. Some readers might already start objecting to my treatment of the rule of law as merely an ''instrumental variable'' of a more desirous economic end-state, whereas the more familiar treatment is that of a society governed by the rule of law as an end-state in itself. There are merits to such quibbles, but there is also plenty of evidence in modern history that the rule of law is an essential cog in the wheel of prosperity.WHAT IS ''RULE OF LAW''?''Rule of law'' is the generally accepted description for how well a political system conforms to formal rules - rather than functioning through the whims of the most powerful social or political agents. For a society to be described as one functioning under rule of law - there must be rules and those rules must be equally applied to everyone in the society. Let us call this Letter of the Law. These rules are usually expressed through the constitution of a country and enforced through the courts. But simply having rules and enforcing them does not suffice in the making of the rule of law - and it is an incomplete (however accurate) conception of it. Some rules can be drafted in bad faith or with the express purpose of protecting the interest of the political elites responsible for governance. This is why many scholars have argued that the rule of law can only be said to exist in a state that functions under rules designed to protect the civil liberties (individual rights, freedom of speech, freedom of association, etc.) of the people living within its territory. Let us call this the Character or Spirit of the Law. The character of the law understood as the fulfilment of constitutionally-guaranteed civil liberties is the most common standard by which governance is judged to conform or deviate from the rule of law. For example, countries that routinely violate the rights of citizens in whatever form cannot be said to be governed by the rule of law, even if it has a written constitution. Consideration of the character of the law is the context to understanding the work of my guest on this episode, Paul Gowder.He is a professor of law at NorthWestern university with a broad research interest and expertise. Paul departs from this common derivation of the character of the law as rooted in liberty - and argued that for the rule of law to be broadly applicable in different societies (not dependent on the political institutions and ethical ideals of any specific society) with varying cultures and traditions of governance, it must be rooted in Equality. To understand Paul's argument, I will briefly state two important aspects that set the tone for our conversation - this should not be taken as an exhaustive summary of his work and I encourage you to check out his website and book. The first is that the rule of law as a principle regulates the actions of the state (government), and it is not to be conflated with other rules that regulate the actions of citizens. This is such an important point because one of the most egregious expressions of the law is when a government uses it to oppress citizens. Secondly, Paul outlines three components of the rule of law based on equality as 1) regularity - the government can only use coercion when it is acting in ''good faith'' and under ''reasonable interpretation'' of rules that already exist and are specific to the circumstances. 2) publicity - the law has to be accessible to everyone without barriers (''officials have a responsibility to explain their application of the law, ...failure to do so commits hubris and terror against the public"). 3) generality - the law must be equally applicable to all. Putting all these elements together gives us a rule of law regime where everyone is equal before the law, and the state does not wantonly abuse citizens or single out particular groups for systematic abuse.I enjoyed this conversation very much, and I want to thank Paul for talking to me. Thank you guys too for always listening, and for the other ways you support this project.TRANSCRIPTTobi; I greatly enjoyed your work on the rule of law. I've read your papers, I've read your book, and I like it very much. I think it's a great public service if I can say that because for a lot of time, I am interested in economic development and that is mostly the issue that this podcast talks about. And what you see in that particular conversation is there hasn't really been that much compatibility between the question of the rule of law or the laws that should regulate the actions of the state, and its strategy for economic development. Most of the time, you often see even some justification, I should say, to trample on rights in as much as you get development, you get high-income growth for it. And what I found in your work is, this does not have to be so. So what was your eureka moment in coming up with your concept, we are going to unpack a lot of the details very soon, but what motivated you to write this work or to embark on this project?Paul; Yeah, I think for me, part of the issue that really drives a lot of how I think about the rule of law and you know, reasons behind some of this work is really a difference between the way that those of us who think about human freedom and human equality, right? I think of it as philosophers, right. So they're philosophers and philosophers think about the ability of people to live autonomous lives, to sort of stand tall against their government, to live lives of respect, and freedom and equality. And that's one conversation. And so we see people, like, you know, Ronald Dworkin, thinking about what the rule of law can deliver to human beings in that sense. And then, you know, there's this entire development community, you know, the World Bank, lots of the US foreign policy, all of the rest of those groups of people and groups of ideas, talk about the rule of law a lot and work to measure the rule of law and invest immense amounts of money in promoting what they call the rule of law across the world. But mostly, it seems to be protecting property rights for multinational investment. And I mean, that makes some kind of sense, if you think that what the rule of law is for is economic development, is increasing the GDP of a country and integrating it into favourable international networks of trade. But if you think that it's about human flourishing, then you get a completely different idea of what the rule of law can be, and should be. And so this sort of really striking disjuncture between the two conversations has driven a lot of my work, especially recently, and especially reflecting even on the United States, I think that we can see how domestic rule of law struggles - which we absolutely have, I mean, look at the Trump administration, frankly, as revolving around this conflict between focusing on economics and focusing on human rights and human wellbeing.Tobi; It's interesting the polarization you're talking about. And one way that I also see it play out is [that] analyst or other stakeholders who participate in the process of nation-building in Africa, in Nigeria… a lot of us that care about development and would like to see our countries grow and develop and become rich, are often at opposite ends with other people in the civil society who are advocating for human rights, who are advocating for gender equality, who are advocating for so many other social justice issues. And it always seems like there's no meeting ground, you know, between those set of views, and I believe it does not have to be so. So one thing I'm going to draw you into quite early is one of the distinctions you made in so many of your papers and even your book is the difference between the conception of the rule of law that you are proposing versus the generally accepted notion of the rule of law based on individual liberty in the classical liberal tradition. I also think that's part of the problem, because talking about individual liberty comes with this heavy ideological connotation, and giving so many things that have happened in Africa with colonialism and so many other things, nobody wants any of that, you know. So you are proposing a conception of the rule of law that is based on equality. Tell me, how does that contrast with this popularly accepted notion of the rule of law [which is] based on individual liberty?Paul; So I think the way to think about it is to start with the notion of the long term stability of a rule of law system. And so here is one thing that I propose as a fact about legal orders. Ultimately, any kind of stable legal order that can control the powerful, that is, that can say to a top-level political leader, or a powerful multinational corporation, or whomever, no, you can't do this, this violates the law and make that statement stick depends on widespread collective mobilization, if only as a threat, right. And so it's kind of an analytic proposition about the nature of power, right? If you've got a top-level political leader who's in command of an army, and they want to do something illegal, it's going to require very broad-based opposition, and hence very broad-based commitment to the idea of leaders that follow the law in order to prevent the person in charge of an army from just casually violating it whenever they want. Okay, accept that as true, what follows from that? Well, what follows from that is that the legal system has to actually be compatible with the basic interests of all. And what that tends to mean and I think this is true, both historically, and theoretically, is leaving aside the philosophical conceptual difference between liberty and equality, which I'm not sure is really all that important. Like I think, ultimately, liberty and equality as moral ideas tend to blur together when you really unpack them. But practically speaking, any stable legal order that can control the powerful has to be compatible with the interests of a broad-based group of the human beings who participate in that legal order. And what that entails is favouring a way of thinking about the rule of law that focuses on being able to recruit the interests of even the worst off. In other words, one that's focused on equality, one that's focused on protecting the interests of the less powerful rather than a laissez-faire libertarian conception of the rule of law that tends to be historically speaking, compatible with substantial amounts of economic inequality, hyper-focus on ideas - like property rights, that support the long-standing interests of those who happen to be at the top of the economy, often against the interests of those that happened to be at the bottom of the economy, right. That's simply not a legal order that is sustainable in the long run. Lately, I've been thinking a lot about the way that this has played out in [the] United States history, in particular. I might have a book that's coming out in December that focuses on a historical account of the development of the rule of law, particularly in the United States. I mean, it's my own country. And so at some point, I had to get talked into writing that book. And we can see that in our history right at the get-go, you know, in the United States, at the very beginning, the rule of law dialogue tended to be focused on protecting the interests of wealthy elite property holders. And this actually played a major part, for example, in the United States' most grievous struggle, namely the struggle over slavery, because slaveholders really relied on this conception of the Rule of Law focusing on individual freedom and property rights to insist on a right to keep holding slaves against the more egalitarian idea that “hey, wait a minute, the enslaved have a right to be participants in the legal system as well.” And so we can see these two different conceptions of legality breaking the United States and breaking the idea of legal order in the United States right at the get-go. And we see this in country after country after country. You know, another example is Pinochet's Chile, which was the victim of [the] United States' economics focused rule of law promotion efforts that favoured the interests of property holders under this libertarian conception over the interests of ordinary citizens, democracy and mass interests. In other words, over the egalitarian conception, and again, you know, devolved into authoritarianism and chaos.Tobi; Yeah, nice bit of history there, but dialling all the way, if you'll indulge me... dialling all the way to the present, or maybe the recent past, of course; where I see another relevance and tension is development, and its geopolitical significance and the modernization projects that a lot of developed countries have done in so many poor and violent nations, you know, around the world. I mean, at the time when Africa decolonized, you know, a lot of the countries gravitated towards the communist bloc, socialism [and] that process was shunted, failed, you know, there was a wave of military coups all over the continent, and it was a really dark period.But what you see is that a lot of these countries, Nigeria, for example, democratized in 1999, a lot of other countries either before then or after followed suit. And what you see is, almost all of them go for American-style federal system, and American-style constitutional democracy, you know. And how that tradition evolved... I mean, there's a lot you can explain and unpack here... how that tradition evolved, we are told is the law has a responsibility to treat people as individuals. But you also find that these are societies where group identities are very, very strong, you know, and what you get are constitutions that are weakly enforced, impractical, and a society that is perpetually in struggle. I mean, you have a constitution, you have rules, and you have a government that openly disregards them, because the constitutional tradition is so divorced from how a lot of our societies evolve. And what I see you doing in your work is that if we divorce the rule of law from the ideal society, you know [like] some societies that we look up to, then we can come up with a set of practical propositions that the rule of law should fulfil, so walk me through how you resolve these tensions and your propositions?Paul; Well, so it's exactly what you just said, right? I mean, we have to focus on actual existing societies and the actual way that people organize their lives, right. And so here's the issue is, just like I said a minute ago, the rule of law fundamentally depends on people. And when I say people, I don't just mean elites. I don't just mean the wealthy, I don't just mean the people in charge of armies, and the people in charge of courthouses, right? Like the rule of law depends, number one, on people acting collectively to hold the powerful to the law. And number two, on people using the institutions that we say are associated with the rule of law. And so just as you describe, one sort of really common failure condition for international rule of law development efforts - and I don't think that this is a matter of sort of recipient countries admiring countries like the US, I think this is a matter of international organizations and countries like the US having in their heads a model of what the law looks like and sort of pressing it on recipient countries.But you know, when you build institutions that don't really resemble how the people in a country actually organize their social, political and legal lives, you shouldn't be surprised when nobody uses them. You shouldn't be surprised when they're ineffective. But I mean, I think that it's been fairly compared to a kind of second-generation colonialism in that sense where countries like the US and like Germany, attempt to export their legal institutions to other countries, without attending to the ways that the people in those countries already have social and legal resources to run their lives. And so I'll give you an example that's interesting from Afghanistan. So in Afghanistan, sort of post the 2000s invasion, and so forth, some researchers, mostly affiliated with the Carnegie Institution, found that the really effective rule of law innovations, the really effective interventions were ones that relied on existing social groups and existing structures of traditional authority. And so, you know, you could build a courthouse and like, ask a formal centralized state to do something, maybe it would work, maybe it wouldn't, maybe people would use it, maybe they wouldn't. But if you took local community leaders, local religious leaders, gave them training, and how to use the social capital they already have to help do things like adjudicate disputes, well, those would actually be effective, because they fit into the existing social organization that already exists. So I'll give you another example. I have a student who... I had… I just graduated an S.J.D student from Uganda who wrote a dissertation on corruption in Uganda. And one of the things that he advocated for I think, really sensibly was, “ okay, we've got this centralized government, but we've also got all of these traditional kingdoms, and the traditional kingdoms, they're actually a lot more legitimate in the sociological sense than the centralized government.People trust the traditional kingdoms, people rely on the traditional kingdoms for services, for integrating themselves into their society. And so one useful way of thinking about anti-corruption reforms is to try and empower the traditional kingdoms that already have legitimacy so that they can check the centralized government. And so that kind of work, I think, is where we have real potential to do global rule of law development without just creating carbon copies of the United States. Tobi; The process you describe, I will say, as promising as it may sound, what I want to ask you is how then do you ensure that a lot of these traditional institutions that can be empowered to provide reasonable checks to the power of the central government also fulfil the conditions of equality in their relation to the general public? Because even historically, a lot of these institutions are quite hierarchical...Paul; Oh, yeah... and I think in particular, women's rights are a big problem.Tobi; Yeah, yeah and there's a lot of abuses that go on locally, even within those communities, you know. We have traditional monarchies who exercise blanket rights over land ownership, over people's wives, over so many things, you know, so how then does this condition of equality transmit across the system?Paul; Yeah, no, I think that's the really hard question. I tell you right now that part of the answer is that those are not end-state processes. By this I mean that any realistic conception of how we can actually build effective rule of law institutions, but also genuinely incorporate everyone's interests in a society is going to accept that there's going to be a kind of dynamic tension between institutions.You know, sometimes we're going to have to use the centralized state to check traditional institutions. Sometimes we're going to have to use traditional institutions to check the centralized state. Elinor Ostrom, Nobel Prize-winning political scientist and her sort of the Bloomington School of Political Economy, emphasized for many years this idea that they called Polycentrism. That is the idea that multiple, overlapping governance organizations that are sort of forced to negotiate with one another, and forced to learn from one another, and really integrate with one another in this sort of complex tension-filled kind of way, actually turns out to be a really effective method of achieving what we might call good governance. And part of the reason is because they give a lot of different people, in different levels of [the] organization, ways to challenge one another, ways to demand inclusion in this decision, and let somebody else handle that decision, and participate jointly in this other decision. And so I think that neither the centralized state alone, nor traditional institutions alone is going to be able to achieve these goals. But I think efforts to integrate them have some promise. And India has done a lot of work, you know, sort of mixed record of success, perhaps, but has done a lot of work in these lines. I think, for example, of many of the ways that India has tried to promote the growth of Panchayats, of local councils in decision making, including in law enforcement, but at the same time, has tried to do things like promote an even mandate, the inclusion of women, the inclusion of Scheduled Castes, you know, the inclusion of the traditionally subordinated in these decision making processes. And as I said, they haven't had complete success. But it's an example of a way that the centralized state can both support traditional institutions while pushing those institutions to be more egalitarian.Tobi; Let's delve into the three conditions that you identified in your work, which any rule of law state should fulfil. And that is regularity, publicity, and generality. Kindly unpack those three for me.Paul; Absolutely. So regularity is...we can think of it as just the basic rule of law idea, right? Like the government obeys the law. And so if you think about this notion of regularity, it's... do we have a situation where the powerful are actually bound by legal rules? Or do we have a situation where, you know, they just do whatever they want? And so I'd say that, you know, there's no state that even counts as a rule of law state in the basic level without satisfying that condition, at least to some reasonable degree. The idea of publicity really draws on a lot of what I've already been saying about the recruitment of broad participation in the law. That is, when I say publicity, what I mean is that in addition to just officials being bound by the law, ordinary people have to be able to make use of the law in at least two senses. One, they have to be able to make use of the law to defend themselves. I call this the individualistic side of publicity, right? Like if some police officer wants to lock you up, the decision on whether or not you violated the law has to respond to your advocacy, and your ability to defend yourself in some sense. And then there's also the collective side of this idea of publicity, which is that the community as a whole has to be able to collectively enforce the boundaries of the legal system. And you know, we'd talk a lot more about that, I think that's really the most important idea. And then the third idea of generality is really the heart of the egalitarian idea that we've been talking about, which is that the law has to actually treat people as equals. And one thing that I think is really important about the way that I think about these three principles is that they're actually really tightly integrated. By tightly integrated, I mean you're only going to get in real-world states, regularity (that is, officials bound by the law) if you have publicity (that is, if you have people who aren't officials who actually can participate in the legal system and can hold officials to the law). We need the people to hold the officials in line. You're only going to get publicity if you have generality. That is, the people are only going to be motivated to use the legal system and to defend the legal system if the legal system actually treats them as equals. And so you really need publicity to have stable regularity, you really need generality to have stable publicity.Tobi; Speaking of regularity, when you say what constrains the coercive power of the state is when it is authorised by good faith and reasonable interpretation of pre-existing reasonably specific rules. That sounds very specific. And it's also Scalonian in a way, but a lot of people might quibble a bit about what is reasonable, you know, it sounds vague, right? So how would you condition or define reasonable in this sense, and I know you talked about hubris when you were talking about publicity. But is there a minimum level of responsibility for reasonability on the part of the citizen in relation to a state?Paul; That's, in a lot of ways, the really hard philosophical question, because one of the things that we know about law is that it is inherently filled with disagreement, right? Like our experience of the legal system and of every state that actually has something like the rule of law is that people radically disagree about the legal propriety of actions of the government. And so in some sense, this idea of reasonableness is kind of a cop-out. But it's a cop-out that is absolutely necessary, because there's no, you know, what [Thomas] Nagel called a view from nowhere. There's no view from nowhere from which we can evaluate whether or not on a day to day basis, officials are actually complying with the law in some kind of correct sense. But again, I think, you know, as you said, to some extent, that implies that some of the responsibility for evaluating this reasonableness criterion falls down to day to day politics, falls down to the judgment of ordinary citizens. Like, my conception of the rule of law is kind of sneakily a deeply democratic conception, because it recognizes given the existence of uncertainty as to what the law actually requires of officials both on a case by case basis. And, broadly speaking, the only way that we're ever going to be able to say, Well, you know, officials are more or less operating within a reasonable conception of what their legal responsibilities are, is if we empower the public at large to make these judgments. If we have institutions like here in the US, our jury trials, if we have an underlying backstop of civil society and politics, that is actively scrutinizing and questioning official action.Tobi; So speaking of publicity, which is my favorite...I have to say...Paul; Mine too. You could probably tell. Tobi; Because I think that therein lies the power of the state to get away with abusive use of its legitimacy, or its power, so to speak. When you say that officials have a responsibility to explain their application of the law, and a failure to do so commits hubris and terror against the public. So those two situations - hubris and terror, can you explain those to me a bit?Paul; Yeah. So these are really, sort of, moral philosophy ideas at heart, particularly hubris. The idea is there's a big difference, even if I have authority over you, between my exercising that authority in the form of commands and my exercising that authority in the form of a conversation that appeals to your reasoning capacity, right. So these days, I'm thinking about it in part with reference to... I'm going to go very philosophical with you here... but in reference to Kant's humanity formulation of the categorical imperative, sorry. But that is a sense in which if I'm making decisions about your conduct, and your life and, you know, affecting your fundamental interests, that when I express the reasons to you for those decisions, and when I genuinely listen to the reasons that you offer, and genuinely take those into account in my decision making process, I'm showing a kind of respect for you, which is consistent with the idea of a society of equals.As opposed to just hi, I'm wiser than you, and so my decision is, you know, you go this way, you violated the law, right? Are we a military commander? Or are we a judge? Both the military commander and the judge exercise authority, but they do so in very different ways. One is hierarchical, the other I would contend is not.Tobi; Still talking about publicity here, and why I love it so much is one important, should I say… a distinction you made quite early in your book is that the rule of law regulates the action of the state, in relation to its citizens.Paul; Yes.Tobi; Often and I would count myself among people who have been confused by that point as saying that the rule of law regulates the action of the society in general. I have never thought to make that distinction. And it's important because often you see that maybe when dealing with civil disobedience, or some kind of action that the government finds disruptive to its interests, or its preferences, the rule of law is often invoked as a way for governments to use sometimes without discretion, its enforcement powers, you know.So please explain further this distinction between the rule of law regulating the state-citizen relation versus the general law and order in the society. I mean, you get this from Trump, you get this from so many other people who say, Oh, we are a law and order society, I'm a rule of law candidate.Paul; Oh, yeah.Tobi; You cannot do this, you cannot do that. We cannot encourage the breakdown of law and order in the society. So, explain this difference to me.Paul; Absolutely, then this is probably the most controversial part of my account of the rule of law. I think everybody disagrees with this. I sort of want to start by talking about how I got to this view. And I think I really got to this view by reflecting on the civil rights movement in the United States in particular, right. Because, you know, what we would so often see, just as you say about all of these other contexts, is we would see officials, we would see judges - I mean, there are, you know, Supreme Court cases where supreme court justices that are normally relatively liberal and sympathetic, like, you know, Justice Hugo Black scolding Martin Luther King for engaging in civil disobedience on the idea that it threatens the rule of law. It turns out, and this is something that I go into in the book that's coming out in December... it turns out that King actually had a sophisticated theory of when it was appropriate to engage in civil disobedience and when it wasn't. But for me, reflecting on that conflict in particular, and reflecting on the fact that the same people who were scolding peaceful lunch-counter-sit-ins for threatening the rule of law and, you know, causing society to descend into chaos and undermining property rights and all the rest of that nonsense, were also standing by and watching as southern governors sent police in to beat and gas and fire hose and set dogs on peaceful protests in this sort of completely new set of like, totally unbounded explosions of state violence. And so it seems to me sort of intuitively, like these can't be the same problem, right, like ordinary citizens, doing sit-ins, even if they're illegal, even if we might have some reason to criticize them, it can't be the same reason that we have to criticize Bull Connor for having the cops beat people. And part of the reason that that's the case, and this is what I call the Hobbesian property in the introduction to the rule of law in the real world...part of the reason is just the reality of what states are, right? Like, protesters don't have tanks and police dogs, and fire hoses, right? Protesters typically don't have armies. If they do, then we're in a civil war situation, not a rule of law situation, the state does have all of those things. And so one of the features of the state that makes it the most appropriate site for this talk about the rule of law is this the state has, I mean, most modern states have, at least on a case by case basis, overwhelming power. And so we have distinct moral reasons to control overwhelming power than we do to control a little bit of legal disobedience, right, like overwhelming power is overwhelming. It's something that has a different moral importance for its control. Then the second idea is at the same time what I call the [...] property... is the state makes claims about its use of power, right? Like ordinary people, when they obey the law or violate the law, they don't necessarily do so with reference to a set of ideas that they're propagating about their relationship to other people. Whereas when modern states send troops in to beat people up, in a way what they're doing is they're saying that they're doing so in all of our names, right, particularly, but not exclusively in democratic governments. There's a way in which the state represents itself as acting on behalf of the political community at large. And so it makes sense to have a distinctive normative principle to regulate that kind of power.Tobi; I know you sort of sidestepped this in the book, and maybe it doesn't really fit with your overall argument. But I'm going to push you on that topic a bit. So how does the rule of law state as a matter of institutional design then handles... I know you said that there are separate principles that can be developed for guiding citizen actions, you know...Paul; Yes. Tobi; I mean, let's be clear that you are not saying that people are free to act however they want.Paul; I'm not advocating anarchy.Tobi; Exactly. So how does the rule of law state then handle citizens disagreements or conflicting interests around issues of social order? And I'll give you an example. I mentioned right at the beginning of our conversation what happened in Nigeria in October 2020. There's a unit of the police force that was created to handle violent crimes. Needless to say that they went way beyond their remit and became a very notoriously abusive unit of the police force. Picking up people randomly, lock them up, extort them for money. And there was a situation where a young man was murdered, and his car stolen by this same unit of the police force and young people all over the country, from Lagos to Port Harcourt to Abuja, everywhere, felt we've had enough, right, and everybody came out in protest. It was very, very peaceful, I'd say, until other interests, you know, infiltrated that action. Paul; Right. Tobi; But what I noticed quite early in that process was that even within the spirits of that protests, there were disagreements between citizens - protesters blocking roads, you know, versus people who feel well, your protest should not stop me from going to work, you know, and so many other actions by the protesters that other people with, maybe not conflicting interests, but who have other opinions about strategy or process feel well, this is not right. This is not how to do this. This is not how you do this, you know, and I see that that sort of provided the loophole, I should say, for the government to then move in and take a ruthlessly violent action. You know, there was a popular tollgate in Lagos in the richest neighbourhood in Lagos that was blocked for 10 days by the protesters. And I mean, after this, the army basically moved in and shot people to death. Today, you still see people who would say, Oh, well, that's tragic. But should these people have been blocking other people from going about their daily business? So how does the rule of law regulate issues of social order vis-a-vis conflict of interest?Paul; So I think this is actually a point in favour of my stark distinction between state action and social action as appropriate for thinking about the rule of law. Because when you say that the state used...what I still fundamentally think of as like minor civil disobedience...so, like blocking some roads, big deal! Protesters block roads all the time, right, like protesters have blocked roads throughout human history, you know, like, sometimes it goes big, right? Like they love blocking roads in the French Revolution. But oftentimes, it's just blocking... so I blocked roads.I participated in, you know, some protests in the early 2000s. I participated in blocking roads in DC, right, like, fundamentally "big deal!" is the answer that the state ought to give. And so by saying to each other and to the government, when we talk about the rule of law, we mean, the state's power has to be controlled by the law, I think that gives us a language to say... even though people are engaging in illegal things, the state still has to follow legal process in dealing with it, right.The state still has to use only the level of force allowed by the law to arrest people. The state can't just send in the army to shoot people. And the principle that we appeal to is this principle of the rule of law. Yeah, maintaining the distinction between lawbreaking by ordinary people and law-breaking by the state helps us understand why the state shouldn't be allowed to just send in troops whenever people engage in a little bit of minor lawbreaking and protests.Tobi; So how does the law... I mean, we are entering a bit of a different territory, how does the law in your conception handles what... well, maybe these are fancy definitions, but what some people will call extraordinary circumstances. Like protests with political interests? Maybe protesters that are funded and motivated to unseat an incumbent government? Or in terrorism, you know, where you often have situations where there are no laws on paper to deal with these sort of extraordinary situations, you know, and they can be extremely violent, they can be extremely strange, they're usually things that so many societies are not equipped to handle. So how should the rule of law regulate the action of the state in such extraordinary circumstances?Paul; Yeah, so this is the deep problem of the rule of law, you know, this is why people still read Carl Schmitt, right, because Carl Schmitt's whole account of executive power basically is, hey, wait a minute emergencies happen, and when emergencies happen, liberal legal ideas like the rule of law dropout, and so fundamentally, you just have like raw sovereignty. And that means that the state just kind of does what it must. Right. So here's what I feel about Schmitt. One is, maybe sometimes that's true, right? And again, I think about the US context, because I'm an American and you know, I have my own history, right? And so in the US context, I think, again, about, Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War, right.Like Abraham Lincoln broke all kinds of laws in the Civil War. Like today, we'd call some of the things that he did basically assuming dictatorial power in some respects. I mean, he did that in the greatest emergency that the country had ever faced and has ever faced since then. And he did it in a civil war. And sometimes that happens, and I think practically speaking, legal institutions have a habit of not standing in the way in truly dire situations like that. But, and here's why I want to push back against Carl Schmitt... but what a legal order can then do is after the emergency has passed...number one, the legal order can be a source of pressure for demanding and accounting of when the emergency has passed, right. And so again, I think of the United States War on Terror, you know, we still have people in United States' custody imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay.September 11 2001, was almost 20 years ago. It's actually 20 years ago and a month, and we still have people locked up in Guantanamo Bay. That's insane. That's completely unjustifiable. And one of the jobs of the legal system is to pressure the executive to say, okay, buddy, is the emergency over yet? No, really, we think that the emergency is over yet. I want reasons, right, publicity again, I want an explanation from you of why you think the emergency is still ongoing. And the legal system can force the executive to be accountable for the claim that the emergency is still ongoing. That's number one. Number two is that law tends to be really good at retroactively, sort of, retrofitting things into legal order, right. And so again, I think about the Civil War. You know, after the US Civil War, lots of civil wars, sorry. American-centric person trying to fight against it. But after the US Civil War, you know, the courts took a pause. And then we have a lot of cases where they took a lot of the things that Lincoln did, they said, okay, some of them at least were illegal, some of them were legal, but only under very specific circumstances. And so they actually built legal doctrine that took into account the emergency that Lincoln faced, and then later wars, such as in the Second World War, the courts took the lessons from the experience in the American Civil War, and used that to impose more constraints. So to bring it about that the emergency actions that Franklin Roosevelt took in the Second World War weren't completely sui generis, sort of like right acts of sovereignty, but were regulated by legal rules created during the Civil War, and after the Civil War. And again, they weren't perfect, right? You know, during the Second World War, the United States interned Japanese Americans, you know, again, sort of completely lawless, completely unjustifiable, but you know, it's an ongoing process. The point is that the legal system is always... the law is always reactive in emergencies. But the reactive character of the law can nonetheless be used as a way to control and channel sovereign power, even in these sort of Schmittian emergency situations.Tobi; So two related questions, your work is interdisciplinary, because you try to blend a lot of social science into legal philosophy. But speaking of legal order and your primary profession, I mean.. for the sake of the audience parties into a lot of other cool stuff, I'm going to be putting up his website in the show notes. But speaking of legal order, and the legal profession, why is so much of the legal profession fascinated with what I would say the rule by law, as opposed to the rule of law. A lot of what you get from lawyers, even some law professors in some situations is [that] the law is the law, and you have to obey it. And even if you are going to question it, however unjustified it may seem, you still have to follow some processes that maybe for ordinary citizens are not so accessible or extremely costly, you know, which I think violate regularity, right, the way you talk about it retrospective legislation, and so many other things. So why is the legal profession so fascinated with the law, as opposed to justification for the law?Paul; Yeah, I think that question kind of answers itself, right. It's unfortunate... I mean, it's sort of natural but it's unfortunate that the people who most influence our dialogue about the way that we, you know, live in [the] society together with a state, namely by organizing ourselves with law happen to be people who are the specialists who find it easiest, right? And so I think the simple answer is right on this one, at least in countries like the United States, I'm not sure how true this is in other countries. But in the United States, the domination of legal discourse by lawyers necessarily means that the sort of real practical, real-world ways in which ordinary people find interacting with anything legal to be difficult, oppressive, or both just aren't in view, right? This is hard for them to understand.But I think in the US, one of the distortions that we've had is that we have an extremely hierarchical legal profession, right. So we have very elite law schools, and those very elite law schools - one of which I teach at - tend to predominantly produce lawyers who primarily work for wealthy corporations and sort of secondarily work for the government. Those lawyers tend to be the ones that end up at the top of the judiciary, that end up in influential positions in academia, that end up, you know, in Congress. The lawyers that, you know, see poor people, see people of subordinated minority groups and see the very different kinds of interactions with the legal system that people who are worse off have, that see the way that the law presents itself, not as a thing that you can use autonomously to structure your own life. But as a kind of external imposition, that sort of shows up and occasionally inflicts harm on you. Those lawyers aren't the ones who end up in our corridors of power. And it's very unfortunate, it's a consequence of the hierarchical nature of, at least in the US, our legal profession. And I suspect it's similar in these other countries as well.Tobi; In your opinion, what's the... dare I say the sacrosanct and objective - those are rigid conditions sorry - expression of the rule of law? The current general conception of the rule accedes to the primacy of the Constitution, right. I've often found that problematic because in some countries you find constitutional provisions that are egregious, and in other cases, you find lawyers going into court to challenge certain actions that they deem unjust, or that are truly unjust on the basis of the same constitution. Right. So what do you think is the most practical expression of the rule of law? Is it written laws? Is it the opinion of the judges? Is it how officials hold themselves accountable? What's the answer?Paul; So I think I'm gonna like sort of twist this a little bit and interpret that question is like, how do you know the extent to which the rule of law exists in a particular place? And my answer is, can ordinary people look officials in the eye, right, you know... if you're walking down the street, and you see a police officer, you know, are you afraid? Or can you walk past them and confidently know you're doing nothing wrong so there's nothing really effectively but they can do to you, right? If you're called in to deal with some kind of bureaucratic problem, like the tax office, can you trust that you exist in a relationship of respect? You know, can you trust that when you show them, actually here are my receipts, I really did have that expense, that that's going to be taken seriously? You know, if people, everybody, feels like they can stand tall, and look government officials in the eye, then to that extent, I think that the rule of law exists in a society.Tobi; Final question, what's the coolest idea you're working on right now?Paul; Oh, gosh. So like I said, I've got two books under contract right now. The first book is a history/theoretical constitutional law account of the development and existing state of the rule of law in the United States. The second book, which I'm more excited about, because it's the one that I plan to write this year, but it's also a lot harder, is I'm trying to take some of the governance design ideas that we see from the notion of rule of law development, and others such as governance development things and apply them to Private Internet platforms, right? Like, basically to Facebook. Um, I was actually involved in some of the work, not at a super high level, but I was involved in some of the work in designing or doing the research for designing Facebook's oversight board. And I'm kind of trying to expand on some of those ideas and think about, you know, if we really believe that private companies, especially in these internet platforms are doing governance right now, can we take lessons from how the rest of the world and how actual governments and actual states have developed techniques of governing behaviour in highly networked, large scale super-diverse environments and use those lessons in the private context? Maybe we can maybe we can't I'm not sure yet. Hopefully, by the time I finish the book, I'll know.Tobi; That's interesting. And I'll ask you this, a similar, I'll say a related situation is currently happening in Nigeria right now, where the President's Twitter handle or username, tweeted something that sounded like a thinly veiled threat to a particular ethnic group. And lots of people who disagreed with that tweet reported the tweet, and Twitter ended up deleting the tweet in question, which high-level officials in Nigeria found extremely offensive, and going as far as to assert their sovereign rights over Twitter and say, well, it may be your platform, but it is our country and we are banning you. How would you adjudicate such a situation? I mean, there's the question of banning Donald Trump from the platform and so many other things that have come up.Paul; Yeah, I mean, it's hard, right? So there are no easy answers to these kinds of problems. I think, ultimately, what we have to do is we have to build more legitimate ways to make these decisions. I mean, here are two things that we cannot do, right?Number one is we can't just let government officials, especially when, you know, as with the Donald Trump example, and so many others, the government officials are the ones who are engaging in the terrible conduct make these decisions. Number two is we also just can't let a bunch of people sitting in the Bay Area in California make those decisions. Like, ultimately, this is on, you know, property in some abstracted sense of like the shareholders of these companies. But we cannot simply allow a bunch of people in San Francisco, in Menlo Park, and you know, Cupertino and Mountain View, and all of those other little tech industry cities that have no understanding of local context to make the final decisions here. And so what we need to do is we need to build more robust institutions to include both global and local and affected countries, grassroots participation, in making these decisions. And I'm trying to sort of sketch out what the design for those might look like. But, you know, talk to me in about a year. And hopefully, I'll have a book for you that will actually have a sketch.Tobi; You bet I'm going to hold you to that. So, a year from now. So still on the question of ideas, because the show is about ideas. What's the one idea you'd like to see spread everywhere?Paul; Oh, gosh, you should have warned me in advance... that... I'm going to go back to what I said at the very beginning about the rule of law. Like I think that the rule of law depends on people, right? Like there is no such thing as the rule of law without a society and a legal system that genuinely is equal and advantageous to ordinary people enough to be the kind of thing that people actually support. Like ordinary people... if you cannot recruit the support of ordinary people for your legal political and social system, you cannot have the rule of law. That's true whether you're a developing country, that's true whether you're the United States, right. Like I think, you know, part of the reason that we got Donald Trump in the United States, I think, is because our legal system and with it our economy, and all the rest are so unequal in this country, that ordinary voters in the United States didn't see any reason to preserve it. Right and so when this lunatic and I mean, I'm just going to be quite frank here and say Donald Trump is a complete lunatic, right... when this lunatic is running for office who shows total disregard for existing institutions, like complete willingness to casually break the law. An electorate that actually was full of people who felt (themselves) treated respectfully and protected and supported by our legal and political institutions would have sent that guy packing in a heartbeat. But because the American people don't have that experience right now, I think that's what made us vulnerable to somebody like Donald Trump.Tobi; Thank you so much, Paul. It's been so fascinating talking to you.Paul; Thank you. This has been a lot of fun. Yeah, I'm happy to come back in a year when I've got the platform thing done.Tobi; Yeah, I'm so looking forward to that. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.ideasuntrapped.com/subscribe

In this episode of the Political Economists Podcast, Max and Jorrel grimace through an infamous political theorist, who is most well known for his work on the nature of man as it relates to the state, Thomas Hobbes. The both of them trudge along, begrudgingly admitting that the essence of Hobbesian thought is easily provable with the past state of affairs in this country. Join them as they dive in deep discussing the meanings of the Social Contract, the "covenant" entered with the state, and on the nature of humankind. 

We talk about Jack Womack's "Random acts of senseless violence" - a "minute into the future" dystopia told from the perspective of a 12 year old girl. It's gritty and depressing, just our speed. Topics include: - How this is a horror story for the Bourgeois - The atomization of daily life - Hobbesian themes - Derrida and the duality between center and periphery - The merits of a political book with no obvious villain - The violence/mundanity barrier

By Ruth Kinna and Clifford Harper. Read by Barbara Graham and Jim Donaghey. Learning to love Stirner is not an uncomplicated task – as one of the most controversial anarchists, he is by turns celebrated as the seminal anarchist theorist and marginalised as a political philosopher only tangentially related to the anarchist movement. Stirner's politics was anti-revolutionary and insurrectionary, and swathes of anarchist communists have accepted the Marxist critique of Stirner and effectively removed him from anarchism's history. Stirner's most vocal anarchist advocates have barely eased his rehabilitation. In the work of his followers, Stirner variously emerges as a neo-Hobbesian, hyper-liberal or joyful hedonist. Stirner's greatness comes from the dilemma he creates for anarchists broadly attracted by his commitment to ‘ownness' – his refusal to suspend individual judgment, and his positive endorsement that individuals discover themselves and recover their uniqueness. The Great Anarchists pamphlet series is published by Dog Section Press and Active Distribution. See: http://dogsection.org/ and http://www.activedistributionshop.org/ for more details. Music by Them'uns - https://soundcloud.com/user-178917365 Pamphlet available to buy here: http://dogsection.org/press/stirner/ https://www.activedistributionshop.org/shop/pamphlets-booklets/4773-great-anarchists-max-stirner.html

It's a Hobbesian war of all against all as CNN and Fox News do battle, Trump fulminates over immigration, and Hamas makes its move. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's a Hobbesian war of all against all as CNN and Fox News do battle, Trump fulminates over immigration, and Hamas makes its move. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices