0:07

Welcome, podcast fans, to the

0:10

first episode of Pitchfork Economics

0:12

with Goldie. That's right,

0:14

just me today running the show.

0:18

And that's because I'm very excited. We're interviewing

0:20

the authors of a brand new book

0:23

that I think you're all going to love. It's

0:25

called Corporate Bullshit, Exposing

0:28

the Lies and Half-Truths that

0:30

Protect Profit, Power and Wealth

0:32

in America. And with

0:35

me today are three of the four authors. Donald

0:39

Cohen, the founder and executive director

0:41

of the Research and Policy Center in

0:44

Public Interest and the co-author of

0:46

The Privatization of Everything.

0:48

Welcome Donald. Thanks for

0:50

having me, Goldie. We have Joan Walsh,

0:53

the national affairs correspondent

0:55

for The Nation, the co-producer

0:57

of the Emmy-nominated documentary

0:59

The Sit-In. Harry Belafonte

1:02

hosts The Tonight Show, and the author

1:04

of What's the Matter with White People.

1:07

Welcome, Joan.

1:08

Thanks, Goldie. Really a

1:10

pleasure to finally get you on the podcast. And

1:13

my final guest, I don't know, some of you

1:15

may have heard of him. He's

1:18

Nick Hanauer, an entrepreneur

1:21

and venture capitalist, the founder of

1:23

the public policy incubator Civic

1:25

Ventures, and the co-host,

1:29

normally, of Pitchfork Economics.

1:31

My boss, Nick, welcome

1:33

to the podcast. Thank you for having

1:36

me, Goldie. Okay. So,

1:38

the three of you, along

1:40

with Zachary Roth,

1:42

have co-authored this book. Nick,

1:45

this is really a topic that is

1:47

close to our hearts. I remember very

1:49

early on

1:51

coming to work with you. You

1:53

pointed out that a lot of the things that people

1:55

were saying on the minimum wage, specifically,

1:57

oh, it's a job killer. It's

1:59

just...

1:59

going to hurt the people you're trying to help

2:02

that they don't say this because

2:05

it's true. They say it

2:08

because it works and they

2:10

say it again and again and again.

2:12

When do you

2:15

have that realization, Nick? You

2:17

know, I don't know. I mean, for sure

2:19

my exposure to this trick

2:23

or whatever you want to call it

2:25

was mostly through our work

2:27

on the minimum wage because

2:29

in the absence of any empirical evidence,

2:31

people kept on saying the same thing again and

2:33

again and again. It'll be a job

2:35

killer. It'll harm the very people it's intended to

2:37

help. But oddly, they never said this other

2:40

thing which is, well, if we paid those workers

2:42

more, our profits and our bonuses

2:45

would be less. Weird. Which

2:47

is weird, right? Like not

2:50

as great an argument in the public policy. No.

2:52

No. But clearly,

2:54

the thing you really care about is your profits

2:56

and your bonuses. Why is it that you don't

2:58

say that? Why is it that the public

3:01

argument you mount isn't

3:03

an honest reflection of your – clearly

3:07

what your priorities are. And the

3:09

more you think about that and the more

3:12

you unpack the social

3:14

and psychological dynamics

3:17

of why the argument unfolds

3:19

in that way, the more interesting the

3:22

problem gets. And then, of course,

3:24

I had the good fortune to be introduced

3:27

to Donald Cohen who had

3:29

had many of the same experiences.

3:32

Right. The same intuition

3:34

that in fact these things are said over and over again.

3:37

In fact, go back a long way,

3:39

Donald. How did you get into this?

3:41

And I know I was introduced

3:44

to the website, the Cry Wolf Project.

3:47

How did that come about?

3:48

Well, just as

3:50

what Nick said, I was dealing

3:52

with job killer bills in California

3:55

for many years and hearing the same arguments

3:57

over and over again for everything

3:59

that we do. we were trying to do and

4:02

everything that everybody else was trying to do. I sort of noticed

4:04

the pattern. I don't remember

4:06

exactly, but I remember thinking, well, let's

4:08

go see what they said before

4:10

the things that we now take for granted. Like

4:13

Social Security, the end of child labor,

4:15

the Clean Air Act, and it turns out they were

4:17

saying the same things. So

4:20

I raised money from a foundation and

4:22

decided to create what we called the Cry Wolf

4:24

Project and created a website. And

4:27

I was fortunate to get a fellowship at Georgetown

4:30

for a while. So I spent some time in DC and

4:32

access to all research. I

4:35

read every hearing on

4:37

the minimum wage since the 1930s. And

4:40

what I found is that it

4:42

was common across many, many issues,

4:45

many issues. And I interviewed all sorts of

4:47

folks doing different work on clean air

4:49

and toxics and workplace safety. And

4:53

this wasn't new. And then

4:55

realized that not only is it not new,

4:57

but they've been saying the same things for 100

5:00

years. And that's how the book is

5:02

organized. I'm sure we'll get into that. So the

5:05

idea came, I remember in the

5:07

office that let's turn this

5:09

website, this database, into

5:11

a book because, oh my God, it's filled

5:14

with some of the most amazing quotes.

5:16

And that's where Joan, you got pulled into

5:18

this project. I'm curious, what did

5:21

you think when you first saw this huge database

5:23

of quotes?

5:24

I was terrified to be honest. It was a

5:26

lot. But what I loved about

5:29

it was

5:32

that it did cross lines.

5:34

It was not organized by climate

5:37

change, smoking

5:40

laws, et cetera. It really

5:42

was documenting the way that

5:44

they use the same things over and over.

5:47

And so that was the fun part about

5:49

it,

5:50

was to see that we are fighting

5:52

the same battle over

5:54

and over. And if we can organize,

5:58

inform other people that these

6:00

are the arguments they use. You

6:03

know, we will

6:05

do better than we're doing now. Because I just

6:07

think, progressive

6:10

people who want positive change,

6:12

we come at everything kind

6:15

of anew, and we need to

6:17

come at things knowing

6:19

the background. And I feel like this is a handbook

6:22

for people who care about

6:24

any of these issues.

6:26

Right. You know how I think of this. I

6:28

think of this as a vaccine. It's

6:30

a vaccine against these dangerous

6:33

mimetic viruses. And so

6:35

what it is, is we've chopped up all this stuff

6:37

into little bits, and you read these quotes,

6:40

and you see how they're used over and over again.

6:43

And it immunizes, that's

6:45

my hope, is that it immunizes readers,

6:48

so that the next time they hear one of these

6:50

things, it's like, oh no, I've got an antibody

6:52

to that. I know that they said that,

6:54

what they're saying about the minimum wage now, they

6:56

said about child labor, the 1890s, and

7:00

before that, about slavery. Right.

7:04

And they're still saying it. And they're

7:06

still saying it. You know,

7:09

DeSantis

7:10

has those guidelines that say, slavery

7:13

was beneficial to some slaves.

7:15

Yeah. And taught them skills,

7:19

and they had it much better than the

7:21

free labor in the North.

7:23

Oh, definitely. Yeah. That's a fair

7:25

answer. It goes on and on.

7:27

So Goldry, you know, one of the things that

7:29

I think is really important, that we don't really

7:32

go into in the book, but you know, it's

7:34

important for people to know is, in

7:37

organizing my thoughts about this

7:39

project, I talked to my

7:42

friend Molly Crockett, who's one of the world's

7:44

leading neuroscientists,

7:47

and sort of psychological researchers.

7:50

And she does tons of work on

7:53

human moral reasoning. And

7:55

she said this incredibly important

7:57

thing to me, which is that, respect

8:00

to humans, moral reasoning

8:03

in

8:37

people who are clearly doing harm

8:39

to other people to clothe their intentions

8:42

in pro-social acts.

8:54

This is why it's so important for

8:56

businesses to say some form of, well,

8:58

we would raise your

9:00

wages, but that would be bad for you.

9:04

In other words, to disguise antisocial

9:07

intentions in pro-social language

9:10

because if they merely said, we

9:12

don't give a rip about you, the only thing we care

9:15

about is our profits and our bonuses and that's

9:17

why we're keeping your wages low, people

9:19

would burn the businesses down

9:22

because their intention would be so

9:24

clear. I

9:27

think that that's the thing that people need to hold

9:29

in their heads is that this is all

9:31

about disguising intentions

9:33

because in the absence of

9:35

that, there'd be riots in the streets

9:38

because once you know

9:40

that somebody is deliberately trying to harm you,

9:42

then you get, you're not afraid

9:44

anymore, then you get angry and the shit

9:46

and the bad shit will happen. There

9:49

are really hilarious quotes that we

9:51

will now think of as hilarious in this book,

9:54

but there is a seriousness. Now, there's some early

9:56

quotes that we found about how lead

9:58

was good for your health. right from the lead

10:00

industry when they knew that it wasn't.

10:04

So I mean, I'm talking, you know, 100 nearly 100

10:06

years ago, people died, right?

10:09

Right. People were harmed by

10:11

the, you know, the lead industry and the gasoline

10:13

industry's refusal and obfuscation

10:16

and denial of problems about lead

10:18

in the atmosphere and our paint in our toys.

10:21

So there's a seriousness here when the intention,

10:24

yeah, I think that one of the things that we hope to do

10:26

is expose that intention and

10:29

the impacts of it. Right.

10:30

But let's get to some of the hilarity because

10:33

it is actually

10:35

a hilarious book in sorts.

10:37

Let's be clear. This is not like a heavy

10:39

tome like this big encyclopedia

10:42

with serious discussions

10:45

around everything. It is fun.

10:48

It's a coffee table book. It's laid

10:50

out in a fun, accessible way. You don't need

10:53

to read it all at once. You get to pick it up,

10:55

like kind of randomly turn to a

10:57

pinch and go, Oh my God, they said that

10:59

about that. Joan,

11:02

what are some of your favorite quotes from this book,

11:05

the quotes that you discovered from this database

11:07

that even shocked you?

11:09

I mean, you know,

11:10

that women having the vote would

11:12

mean that men wouldn't marry

11:15

them and they would

11:17

die. That was

11:19

one. You know, the lead

11:21

one was really impressive.

11:24

Smoking being really good for you.

11:27

I did know that that was a thing

11:30

in our lifetimes, actually.

11:32

But yeah, it was kind

11:34

of the approach to

11:37

this whole, you know, nightmare

11:40

that really drew me that you have

11:43

to, you've got to laugh. You've

11:45

got to laugh. And, you

11:48

know, we've got cartoons and,

11:50

you know, and it's just, it's

11:53

really laughable. You know, it's ridiculous

11:55

what they have been doing. And

11:58

it's, I mean, I know.

11:59

that

12:00

we are discovering something

12:03

that

12:03

has been kind

12:05

of known but subterranean

12:08

and it's so important to

12:10

bring it out. Yeah, can I just share

12:12

one quote about women's right

12:15

to vote? It's just so good. So

12:18

let me read this to you. Women's participation in

12:20

political life would involve the domestic

12:22

calamity of a deserted

12:25

home and the loss of the womanly

12:27

qualities for which refined men

12:29

adore women and marry them. Doctors

12:33

tell us too that thousands

12:35

of children would be harmed or killed

12:38

before birth by the injurious effect

12:40

of untimely political excitement

12:44

on their mothers.

12:45

That's

12:47

perfect.

12:47

It's

12:50

just unbelievable

12:52

how far you will

12:54

stretch to not have to

12:57

say, we want to have power

12:59

and we don't want them to have any power. It's

13:01

at once horrifying and funny

13:06

because in the moment

13:08

they meant it seriously and we can

13:10

look back at that and some

13:13

of them believed it, let's be honest. Yeah,

13:15

right. You know, on slavery,

13:17

let me just, you know, the Negro

13:20

slaves of the South are the happiest

13:22

and in some senses the freest

13:24

people in the world. The

13:27

children and the ages in infirm

13:29

work not at all. The women do little

13:31

hard work and are protected from the despotism

13:34

of their husbands by their

13:36

masters. Oh,

13:40

I know that quote, that was from

13:42

a speech that Ron DeSantis gave

13:44

just last month, right? No, it

13:47

just staggers the mind,

13:52

the degree to which folks

13:54

will go to protect

13:57

their interests and the things

13:59

that they'll say. But always,

14:01

you know, like what's just, again, what's

14:03

just shocking is

14:06

the quiet part is never sad to out loud.

14:09

The powerful never advance

14:11

the arguments that obviously

14:14

are motivating them, right? It's just

14:16

so funny. It's always like this pro-social

14:18

language about, well, no, no, no, it's good for you,

14:21

you know. What I think is funny,

14:23

both funny and interesting about the book is the

14:25

way that there are similar

14:28

arguments that are used

14:31

again and again, but not always

14:33

on the same topic, how you see

14:36

these themes that run

14:38

throughout the political

14:41

polemic over the years. If you could maybe

14:44

go through what some of these are.

14:46

It's, you know, first it's not a problem.

14:48

Smoking won't cause, you know, doesn't cause cancer,

14:51

right? I'll do it

14:53

and then you can fill in, Nick. So, and then, secondarily,

14:56

it's not our fault. It's your fault. You

14:59

know, a coal mine fell because workers were irresponsible,

15:02

not the coal operator creating the conditions. Job

15:05

killer and everything, you know,

15:08

then disaster. Socialism

15:10

and or, you know, or you're going to lose your freedom.

15:14

And then, you know, the one I think that Nick likes the best is

15:16

that, you know, this will hurt you. You know,

15:18

how do we say it in the book, Nick? No,

15:21

it's worse. Is that it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So,

15:24

you know, again, minimum wage will

15:27

hurt. You know, I think Reagan said something like it's

15:29

the most anti-poor piece

15:31

of legislation on the books. So this will hurt

15:33

the very people you're trying to help. And

15:37

we see this over and over again. And earlier, Golda,

15:39

you said, you know, look, as inoculation

15:41

or, you know, vaccine for going forward,

15:44

the next time people are going to see those arguments

15:46

is in tomorrow's newspaper. Right.

15:49

I see them every day. No, if

15:51

an industry spokesperson is saying

15:54

something, they are using

15:56

one of these laws. I mean, it's just

15:58

it's unkeenable. It's

16:00

just uncanny, and again, I think what's

16:02

so important is to see the patterns

16:05

because in and of themselves, like

16:07

when the new lie surfaces about the

16:09

new circumstance, it always

16:11

sounds plausible, right? It's

16:15

plausible that by regulating

16:18

this behavior or charging

16:20

more for whatever it is that

16:23

the whole society will collapse. But

16:26

until you realize that they've said that about everything

16:28

for 200 years, right? So

16:31

the context makes such a difference.

16:35

One of the things that really animated my interest

16:37

in this, you guys – I'm not sure if I ever

16:39

told you – was that in my early work on

16:42

the minimum wage, there

16:44

was all this pushback. There will be a job killer, it will be a

16:46

job killer, it will be a job killer, especially

16:48

when we were doing 15 in 2012. And

16:52

I called Larry Michelle,

16:54

who worked at DPI then

16:57

and asked him about an historical

16:59

record. I'm like, well, has it killed

17:01

jobs before? And his

17:04

analysis had only gone back to

17:06

the late 1990s

17:08

or something like that. And I'm like, but we've

17:11

been raising the minimum wage for like 100 years.

17:14

What happened the last 50 times? He's

17:16

like, I have no idea. I've never – no one's ever

17:18

done that analysis. So he hired an

17:20

economist to go back

17:23

and look at the employment data

17:25

at every single time

17:27

the minimum wage had been raised

17:30

since inception. Is it 1928?

17:33

1938, Fair Labor Standards Act. And

17:36

indeed, in zero cases –

17:39

I think it was 24 times or something

17:41

like that that we'd raised the minimum wage. There

17:43

was – And

18:00

most consequentially, when you

18:02

look at the actual job data,

18:05

the more affected the job

18:08

was by the minimum wage. In

18:11

fact, the more jobs there were created

18:13

in the aftermath. It was absolutely

18:15

fascinating. But until you can

18:18

look back historically and realize

18:21

that at

18:21

every single point

18:23

for 100 years or whatever is 90 years that

18:26

people had tried to raise the minimum wage, that

18:28

people who didn't want it to be raised because the profits

18:31

would be moderated said

18:33

the same exact thing. And in every single

18:35

case that never killed jobs,

18:38

you just have to say to yourself, why

18:39

is it that we have to have this

18:41

fight every time? So let me share.

18:44

When I did the fellowship, one of the things I did was I

18:47

looked at evidence after the fact on many of these

18:49

laws and regulations

18:51

and just like what Nick was

18:53

saying. But realize that we

18:55

don't need as a debunking. We need pre-bunking.

18:58

Right? That's a great phrase. And

19:01

so because we'll get into the fight

19:03

about the minimum wage and you'll have your data and all that. It's

19:06

just that we lose when

19:08

we're debunking. We

19:10

accept their premise. We would just say,

19:12

no, your premise

19:14

is a lie. Your premise

19:17

is a ruse. And

19:20

that's the direction that the project took. We

19:22

need to ridicule these folks. And what

19:24

I wanted early on, I told Nick and Joan,

19:27

I wanted to get Reagan's phrase. There they go

19:29

again.

19:30

And just dismiss it right out of hand as soon

19:32

as they say it. Yeah. Can

19:34

I jump in about Reagan? Because

19:37

in my life, the most,

19:39

not the most important, but a very important

19:42

insight realization was Reagan

19:45

went from being the guy who talked

19:48

about welfare cheats, welfare

19:50

queens, young bucks,

19:52

buying, you know, people's

19:55

takes with food

19:57

stamps. But then he moderated.

20:00

And he became the guy who said,

20:02

we fought a war on poverty

20:05

and poverty won. And

20:07

it gave people permission to

20:10

just think

20:10

that if we're trying to help

20:13

those people, we're

20:15

hurting them. And so we've got

20:17

to come up with private sector

20:19

solutions. We've got to cut things off.

20:22

And I think to this day

20:25

that, I mean, the modern

20:27

Republican

20:28

Party is not Reagan's party,

20:30

I have to say. But I think to this

20:32

day for responsible

20:35

conservatives, that's still

20:38

active and it really

20:40

changed our discourse.

20:42

You know what stands out to me, Joan,

20:45

thinking back on the Reagan era, what

20:48

Ronald Reagan was very successful

20:51

at was ridiculing

20:53

liberals. He helped turn the

20:56

word liberal into a bad

20:58

word that liberals were afraid to use. So

21:00

they started calling themselves progressives. He

21:03

destroyed the brand and it showed

21:05

how successful

21:07

ridicule can be as

21:11

a political tool. And

21:14

that's what I love about this

21:16

book. It is turning the tables

21:19

back on the other side.

21:21

It is a giant eye

21:23

roll at everything they

21:26

say and have said and

21:28

continue to say for the past 150 years. And

21:33

there's another strategic element to this

21:36

that you're highlighting, Goldie, which I

21:38

want to emphasize again,

21:40

and that is the essential

21:43

role of ridicule in

21:46

these sorts of discourses. Because

21:48

again, just circling back to one of the

21:51

statements that you made early, they

21:53

don't say these things because they're true.

21:56

They say these things because they're an effective

21:59

way. to prosecute their interests.

22:02

And if you think that

22:05

you're going to talk the Chamber of Commerce

22:07

out of saying that

22:10

raising wages kills jobs by

22:13

showing them the economic evidence, you

22:15

are deeply, deeply

22:17

naive. Right. This is a mistake that

22:19

Democrats make that you can win on the facts.

22:21

You can't win on the facts. No.

22:26

They don't care about the facts. They care

22:29

about their profits, right? The

22:31

Chamber of Commerce does not represent business.

22:34

The Chamber of Commerce represents the economic

22:37

interests of the owners of capital and

22:39

the executives who run those companies.

22:42

And the lower wages are, the higher

22:44

their profits are. It's that simple. It's

22:46

not more complicated than that. And at the heart

22:48

of this, what's funny is at the heart of

22:50

this, what we would say are these

22:53

immoral intentions, they're winning

22:55

by making moral arguments. Exactly.

22:59

All of these arguments are moral arguments.

23:01

They are all moral arguments. You know, when

23:03

you read this book and you go back and you

23:05

look at the things they said about child

23:07

labor, defending child labor, you

23:10

know, if we got rid of child labor, it'd be bad for

23:12

the children, right? They

23:14

starve. I don't have to quote quotes

23:16

in front of me. Maybe

23:19

one of you can give us

23:21

some of these.

23:22

But in fact, they're making these quotes

23:24

today about

23:27

child labor. They're still

23:29

arguing for child labor.

23:31

The Heritage Foundation has a

23:35

spokeswoman. I forget her name. I apologize.

23:38

But she's like, this teaches

23:40

them

23:41

discipline. They

23:43

have to get up and dress

23:44

correctly. They

23:46

get some money that

23:48

they learn how to manage money.

23:50

And it's so much better for them than

23:52

not being a child

23:55

safer. Like when

23:57

I found this, I sent this to Nick

23:59

and D.

23:59

on. I was just like,

24:02

oh my god. Yeah, there

24:04

is no bottom.

24:05

There is no bottom.

24:07

There's no bottom. But more importantly, there's no end.

24:10

There's no end to this, they will continue.

24:12

So this gets me thinking, I'm wondering,

24:15

I don't know if any of you know this, you've

24:17

created this book, as

24:19

I said, in order to immunize the public against

24:22

these, it's a we're collecting them all

24:24

in one place, you can see them in

24:26

context, you can see how these

24:29

these quotes, how all this

24:31

bullshit connects to each other, the logic

24:34

behind it and why it works. The

24:36

fact that they're so consistent in

24:38

saying these same things over and over

24:41

again, do you think there's a secret

24:43

evil like guidebook on the other side

24:45

that they, maybe we

24:47

haven't discovered that, oh,

24:50

when you get to child labor, this is what you

24:52

say. When you get the minimum wage visit,

24:55

these are the main talking points on

24:58

how to increase profits. Yeah,

25:02

they hand them out at the Harvard Business School. It

25:04

might be. Is it in

25:07

the latest edition of Menkyu? I don't

25:09

know. Yeah,

25:13

when you graduate, they slip this to you

25:16

in your diploma at Harvard. Right,

25:18

but don't show anybody.

25:24

Listen,

25:26

some of these things are just protecting their interests

25:29

by saying stuff, and other times

25:31

they are actively lying, climate

25:33

change. We are suffering from climate change now

25:36

because the oil companies, you know, profligated

25:39

doubt and lies. In

25:42

some cases, it's far more organized, the

25:44

tobacco industry, the other industries. In

25:47

other cases, it's just the standard run of the

25:49

male greed. But again, getting

25:51

to that point when you connect these things, the

25:53

same arguments that

25:54

they use to create doubt over climate

25:56

change for the same arguments they use to create

25:59

doubt. over tobacco or the

26:01

same arguments that they use to create doubt

26:03

over lead. These same arguments

26:06

are used, they're recycled over and

26:08

over again because they work. And

26:11

by the way, I just silly me,

26:13

I know there is a guidebook. We all know what it

26:15

is that they use. It's called capitalism

26:17

and freedom. A little

26:20

bit. Yeah. Yeah. A

26:22

little bit of that.

26:24

It's kind of like women have to learn

26:26

that there are certain lies

26:29

that men,

26:31

bad men, let's say, will tell

26:33

you about what's

26:35

going on. It's

26:37

me, it's not you or

26:39

gaslighting you about their intentions.

26:43

And women have a code

26:46

of sharing these ideas and sharing

26:49

their experiences. And it's

26:51

really deep and it's really

26:54

been important. And for

26:56

some reason, this set

26:58

of traits and this set

27:01

of lies has not been shared

27:03

in a popular way until

27:06

this book. So I'm really

27:08

proud of that.

27:09

Yeah. No, it's really true. There

27:12

is this, I mean, Goldie, it's

27:14

interesting, the question you raised

27:16

glibly about is, is there a codebook

27:19

that you get it gets hand out that teaches

27:21

people how to tell these lies? And

27:24

I think the answer is no. Although

27:27

that's not true. I am sure there are tons

27:30

of professional PR

27:32

people who are trained

27:35

in these tactics, who absolutely

27:37

go to work knowing how

27:40

to spin this bullshit and are

27:42

proud of their ability to obfuscate

27:44

the truth and to lead people

27:47

down antisocial paths. Like

27:50

the other EPI,

27:53

the fake EPI that works for the

27:55

restaurant industry, what's

27:57

its name, Saltzman, whatever. who

28:00

just trots these out and

28:02

gets quoted credulously

28:05

by reporters and writes

28:08

his op-eds. And he knows exactly

28:11

what he's doing because he does

28:13

the same thing every time.

28:15

I personally loved learning

28:17

about the fight for the

28:19

minimum wage in Seattle and

28:21

how it was going to destroy the

28:23

restaurant industry and I thought I'd have

28:26

a place to eat when I came there. And when

28:29

I've been there, there are some

28:31

really great restaurants and

28:34

it's thriving. The whole restaurant

28:37

industry is

28:39

fine.

28:40

It's antisocial. I love

28:42

that take on it. It's antisocial

28:44

and it's

28:46

a lie. And if you test out

28:49

any of these claims, you know.

28:51

And let me make a point that so there's, you know,

28:53

in the last few years, disinformation

28:56

and gaslighting has become a thing that we're

28:58

all talking about over the last few years, but it's been

29:01

about politics. This

29:03

is a book that will turn this and say, but wait

29:05

a second, we've been gaslit and been

29:07

fed disinformation for 100 years to

29:10

the end of corporate and personal wealth and

29:12

interest. So I think that's really

29:14

an important thing this book does is it makes

29:17

gaslighting and disinformation an

29:19

economic reality that we've been facing for many

29:21

years.

29:22

Yeah. You know, speaking of the gaslighting

29:24

industry, you actually have in

29:28

the book, a mobile, mobile

29:30

oil ad from 19, let's say

29:33

in the New York Times from 1997, warning

29:36

about the science that the science of climate

29:38

change is uncertain and would plunge

29:41

the world into economic turmoil.

29:44

Now we're living through the worst

29:46

year of the planet. Wildfires

29:52

and drought. Yeah. I mean,

29:55

they did that.

29:56

Right. So you see the impact again.

29:59

It's a funny book. in many ways

30:01

it's also kind of a scary book

30:04

because you can see throughout

30:06

history how effective this

30:08

corporate bullshit has been which of course

30:11

is why they keep doing it.

30:13

Yeah and again you know I know

30:16

we're attempting to sell our book here but

30:18

I really I really

30:20

do feel strongly that

30:23

you know every citizen should

30:26

acquaint themselves whether

30:28

whether you were on the left or the right you

30:31

were harmed equally by these lies you

30:34

know Democrat and Republican

30:36

children will both

30:39

die from E. coli

30:41

in equal measure if

30:43

we if we do not properly regulate

30:46

our food food system right we are all

30:48

equally that was a job

30:51

killer. Yeah right.

30:53

Getting E. coli out of the ground oh

30:55

my god. Yeah come on.

30:59

I mean yeah right you

31:01

know I really feel strongly that this is

31:03

a very easy way to create context

31:06

for all of the things you experience every

31:08

day in your life and will

31:11

allow you to process the information

31:13

that is pointed at you in a much

31:15

more successful way by having contacts.

31:18

And can I just add it's really exciting

31:20

that it's coming out on Halloween.

31:22

It's scary. It's you know give

31:25

it to your friends.

31:30

It's just

31:31

perfect Halloween present.

31:33

That's right it belongs on the coffee

31:35

table of every American family. Well

31:39

as our regular listeners know we we

31:41

always have one final question

31:43

for our guests. I'm gonna start with you

31:46

Donald. Why do you do

31:48

this work? I do this work

31:50

and I may you know I was on once before so maybe

31:52

it was the same answer. I do this work because I

31:55

hate hate and I hate read.

31:57

That's why I do this work. That's

31:59

it. are pretty succinct. That's maybe the

32:01

most succinct answer we've gotten in

32:03

a long time. Jones,

32:06

why do you do this work?

32:08

I was raised to do this work. This is what

32:11

it meant to be Catholic when I was a little

32:13

kid. You cared about

32:15

people who were less fortunate. And as I've

32:18

gotten older, I've seen it

32:20

more broadly. But really, that's

32:23

the answer.

32:24

Okay, so social justice Catholic,

32:26

the best Catholic.

32:27

Very much. Yeah.

32:29

Yeah. And finally,

32:31

I get to ask this. I know

32:34

you've tortured guests with this for a long time,

32:36

Nick. Why do you do this work?

32:38

Yeah, that's a darn good question. I mean,

32:41

I think Don's answer was succinct.

32:44

I think, for me, it's slightly broader than

32:46

that. I just, I

32:48

hate injustice. I

32:50

find people who

32:53

deliberately harm other people to be objectionable.

32:57

And we grew up in a

32:59

world where, as

33:02

we've talked billions of times, we

33:04

grew up in this neoliberal world, UNI,

33:06

Goldie, and we were, in

33:09

many ways, actively encouraged to bring

33:11

harm to other people. We were told that it was

33:13

economically efficient to bring harm

33:15

to other people. And I just

33:18

always knew that was bullshit. And

33:20

it is a great use of time,

33:22

money, and energy to push

33:26

back on that and try to bend the

33:28

arc of history towards justice. Just a tiny

33:30

bit. Well, I'm going to add

33:32

on to that, Nick. And I know you would agree with this.

33:34

And I assume Donald and Joan

33:36

will too. One of the reasons why

33:39

I did this work is that I love winning.

33:42

And this is the type of

33:45

book that it takes to win. It's not

33:47

the only thing we need to do, but it helps. Just

33:50

making people aware of how the other

33:52

side is trying to manipulate you. Sometimes

33:54

have your own side is trying to manipulate

33:56

you. And that's why I'm going

33:59

to make an ass. I know Nick you're going to make an ask.

34:02

This book comes out in a week

34:04

on Halloween. It's important

34:07

for the way the book industry works

34:09

that we get some pre-sales. So we're going

34:12

to ask you all to go out

34:14

and and buy this book

34:17

in advance because that's

34:19

how you get on the best seller

34:21

list. And that's how more people

34:23

see this book. And the more people

34:26

that see this book and read

34:28

this book, the more people

34:30

will understand the corporate

34:33

bullshit that has been influencing

34:36

our politics for the past 150

34:39

years. And really, if you think about it, going all the way back

34:41

at least to the Romans. Yes, correct.

34:45

Correct. Couldn't be more true. Well,

34:47

Joan, Donald, and

34:49

Nick, thank you for joining Pitchfork Economics.

34:52

Of course, we will provide links

34:56

to the book in the show notes. Again,

34:58

we urge you to go out there

35:01

and pre-order this. You

35:03

can get it from your favorite local

35:05

independent bookstore or,

35:08

you know, there's always that big online monopolist

35:11

that makes it convenient. So, you

35:14

know, use the monopolies to help destroy

35:16

them by making this book a best seller.

35:18

And

35:30

find us on Twitter and Facebook at Civic Action

35:33

and Nick Hanauer. Follow our writing on

35:35

Medium at Civic Skunk Works and peek behind

35:37

the podcast scenes on Instagram at Pitchfork

35:39

Economics.

35:40

As always, from our team at Civic Ventures,

35:42

thanks for listening. See

35:45

you next week.