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cooter Our website thebbc.co.uk. Who.

1:00

Ruled Catholic boy growing up in little

1:02

pool I had a pretty short list

1:04

of banned things. move will soon was

1:06

about doing because he got you into

1:08

hell but able to was also about

1:10

thing because they the judge rivals across

1:12

the park from my beloved Liverpool and

1:14

then there was capitalism. Well that was

1:16

about thing about thing because you see

1:19

it was well responsible for all the

1:21

ills of the world, the poverty of

1:23

the working class, the excesses of the

1:25

rich and famous inventor live the list

1:27

goes shorter. Mortal. Sin last

1:29

to leave those to Manchester United

1:31

became the enemy. Only one bad

1:33

thing endured Capitalism. It was the

1:36

word that I and my friends

1:38

turn to where we wanted a

1:40

quick explanation of every social ill

1:42

back there. In capitalism was a word which

1:44

is used. Freely by labour politicians

1:46

are word which appeared on

1:48

banners carried by street demonstrators

1:51

the viruses capitalism, capitalism, pills.

1:53

Somehow we all knew without

1:55

any further reflection what the

1:57

word meant, what it stood

1:59

for, Jeremy these slacker

2:01

flatmate of straight laced bank worker

2:03

Mark in Shovelfuls two thousands killed

2:06

Sitcom Peepshow when locked in the

2:08

stockroom having so in the chocolate

2:11

bar from a corner shop, he

2:13

had a clear defense: Aqaba Levy

2:15

call the Police. Are.

2:17

Going out. But

2:20

the hell were you thinking? What? If you

2:23

just pay for it basically paying off, worry that

2:25

crap mark. Silly things of

2:27

makes everything very cheap. You

2:29

know how few of our Catholic this can

2:32

say is? Was. Just as David

2:34

Mitchell is Mark and Robert Webb

2:36

as Jazz Peepshow who was It

2:38

was written by just yards from

2:41

fans some bones, but a recent

2:43

book offers some clarifications. Any confusion

2:45

about the meaning of capitalism fits

2:47

in titles Capitalism. The story behind

2:49

the words are it's authors of

2:52

Now joins me is Michael Sullivan

2:54

show Who's Fellow at King's College

2:56

Cambridge Michael Nice if I may,

2:58

the world capitalism has endured even

3:00

though capitalism itself sends his initial.

3:03

Uses who is quite different from the

3:05

way we use the term now wasn't

3:07

to somebody about those origins. As a

3:09

Catholics growing up in Liverpool the rather

3:11

closer to the words origins and you

3:14

may have no because said capitalism began

3:16

as a French word every ten easement

3:18

and was used initially mainly by I

3:20

people like the youthful Laurie Taylor Specs

3:22

ethics because they were not kerry pleased

3:25

about the way in which the world

3:27

was going with it had something to

3:29

do with this thing called Kapitalismus a

3:31

word that and it isn't. Like

3:33

Socialists and more liberal as and more

3:36

conservatism and all these words come and

3:38

go. Seven seem to last much longer

3:40

than others, but that doesn't mean to

3:43

say that they mean the same sort

3:45

of thing all the time. Capitalism was

3:47

coined in France, but it was used

3:50

with reference mainly to Britain and the

3:52

capacity particularly associated with Eighteenth century Britain

3:54

of states to borrow capital to fund

3:57

in the maze in the costs of

3:59

war. Can You Smoke Capitalism

4:01

is associated with somebody called the

4:03

Monsters Get The Road To Beg

4:06

Britain In the famous book called

4:08

the Spirit of Laws in which

4:10

Monsters Good said that public debt

4:12

would mean the end of political

4:15

liberty and political freedom in modern

4:17

Britain because governments could use public

4:19

debt to borrow fans without having

4:21

to raise taxes without their for

4:23

having to rely on the a

4:26

sense of that a British House

4:28

of Commons and this gave government's

4:30

quite a considerable amount of room

4:32

for maneuver for either imperial adventures

4:35

on one side or corruption and

4:37

place mongering on the other side

4:39

written had on the one hand

4:41

constitutional government and constitutional government it

4:44

with said was good for public

4:46

that but on the other hand

4:48

public debt because of it's capacity

4:50

to be used by governments without

4:52

accountability was in longer term bad

4:55

for constitutional government. So capitalism came

4:57

to be associated both with Britain

4:59

and. With British imperialism and another

5:01

aspect of modern Britain namely British

5:03

industry and bridges, trade and the

5:06

idea of a division of labor.

5:08

So all three of these things

5:10

went together which was a cause

5:12

of as much miss fortune. His

5:14

fortune given break his power and

5:16

prosperity to Britain, but in the

5:18

longer term it has claimed it

5:20

would turn out to be rather

5:22

more self defeating thought it looked.

5:25

So that's what capitalism began as

5:27

a kind of pejorative description of

5:29

modern British. political and economic arrangements

5:31

to the first have the dungeons

5:33

and see the was a fundamental

5:35

difference between capitalism and much to

5:37

turn to mess with the sars

5:39

and could you elaborate more on

5:41

that homing in conditions in which

5:43

everyone was dependent upon everyone else

5:45

full the basic necessities of life

5:47

then everyone would be obliged in

5:49

some sort of sense to become

5:51

a kind of trained as they

5:53

would have to think on their

5:55

feet to take advantage of whatever

5:57

opportunities that to came that way

5:59

be a traitor and a society

6:01

predicated on the existence of the

6:03

division of labour would therefore become

6:05

a commercial society. And this phrase

6:07

was picked up after the revolution

6:09

of July 1830 as excessive

6:12

claims about the unstable

6:15

quality of the new post-revolutionary French regime.

6:18

There were two big questions that had

6:20

to be answered. The first, it was

6:22

said, was the political question, the kind

6:24

of government, the kind of regime that

6:27

France after 1850 might have. But

6:30

then there was another question, the social question.

6:33

What about the unequal distribution of resources?

6:35

That is the hallmark of most societies.

6:37

I suppose you could say that capitalism

6:39

is a theory of property. It's a

6:41

property theory. It's about who owns what

6:43

and who does what with what. The

6:46

division of labour, on the other

6:48

hand, is a market theory. It's

6:50

a theory of different economic and

6:52

social agents locked into a kind

6:54

of system of interdependence which doesn't

6:56

particularly go along with property. Property

6:58

is something that enables people to

7:01

be self-sufficient or independent, if they happen

7:03

to have enough of it. Whereas

7:05

the division of labour either develops extensively,

7:07

more and more people come to be

7:10

involved in exchanging and producing different types

7:12

of goods. More and more people come

7:14

to do more and more specialised things

7:17

and more and more people come to

7:19

depend on one another because they only

7:21

make very tiny components of the entire

7:23

wealth of a society or the world.

7:26

There was a famous example used by

7:28

Adam Smith about making the 14th part

7:30

of a pin as a way of

7:32

making a comment about what kind of

7:34

human is likely to be the result

7:36

of spending your life making the 14th

7:39

part of a pin. Not likely to

7:41

be all that viable and not likely

7:43

to be all that successful. And therefore

7:45

the social question may be rather more

7:47

difficult to answer than the political question.

7:50

And to some degree the ownership

7:53

of property and the interdependence of

7:55

both owners and non-owners came to

7:57

be subsumed under this word capitalism.

8:00

Carl Marx made no use at

8:02

all of the term capitalism, but

8:04

he very much did contribute to

8:06

the transformation of the concept of

8:09

commercial society into the concept of

8:11

capitalism. Would you explain that for

8:13

me? I actually don't know why

8:15

Marx didn't call it capitalism rather

8:17

than as he did. Thus, capital,

8:19

it was intended to be a

8:22

noun which did have these

8:24

sort of systemic properties. The

8:26

focus in capital is very

8:29

much on the two things, the

8:31

division of labour and the ownership of

8:33

property. On the one side there is

8:35

an immense array of commodities, but on

8:38

the other side there are, well, these

8:40

real people doing particular things in their

8:42

specific and different ways, making this and

8:45

that, and the ways in which in

8:47

some sort of sense they pull against

8:49

one another. So sooner or later these

8:51

two things will explode and the productive

8:54

system will take over the property system

8:56

and enable all the kinds of attributes

8:58

that make us each individually the kind

9:01

of people who we might potentially

9:03

become really able to lead the

9:05

individual lives that we might be

9:07

able to lead. The individuality that

9:09

came along with the division of

9:11

labour might somehow find a way

9:13

of fulfilling itself in ways that

9:15

property and the state and laws

9:17

and government rather stood in the

9:19

way of. The idea, I think,

9:21

in communism creation was

9:24

matched by humanity creating

9:26

itself. All its individual

9:28

qualities and attributes and properties turn

9:30

into something collectively. When we try

9:32

to think of alternatives to capitalism,

9:34

we do tend to think, principally,

9:37

I suppose, of socialism and communism,

9:39

but I found it interesting that

9:41

you want to suggest there could

9:43

be many more. What do you

9:45

mean exactly? The property side of

9:47

capitalism has, over the years, lent

9:49

itself to many, many varieties of

9:51

capitalism because property can be owned

9:54

or used or held in many,

9:56

many different ways, temporally or conditionally,

9:58

collectively or... Partially, properties

10:00

are pretty fluid and elastic

10:03

kind of system. Much

10:05

less clear, however, that the

10:07

division of labor is as fluid or

10:09

as elastic. It can change, but more

10:11

and more people can end up doing

10:13

smaller and smaller things, or larger and

10:15

larger numbers of people can end up

10:17

becoming more and more interdependent. But it's

10:19

not all that obvious that you can

10:22

get out of the division of labor

10:24

in the way that you can get

10:26

out of one form of property and

10:28

replaced it by other forms of property

10:30

in ways that have certainly been the case

10:32

all over the world over the last two

10:34

or three hundred years. That's what I was

10:37

trying to suggest in saying that there are

10:39

different ways in which you can think about

10:41

the capital. Although capitalism isn't always easy to

10:43

define, it remains visible, if you like, in

10:45

our city-scapes, in our daily lives. So can

10:48

I ask you where we see it? Where

10:50

do we see capitalism? Think about your car.

10:52

It's made of so many different things these

10:54

days. Think about your fridge. Your fridge is

10:57

made of a certain kind of combination of

10:59

metals and plastics and relies

11:01

on a certain number of chemicals,

11:03

as too does your washing machine.

11:05

All these things have different origins,

11:07

different producers, different kinds of attributes

11:09

or brands. And all are indicative

11:11

of the degree of interdependence that

11:14

goes along with the division of

11:16

labor and the fact that, well,

11:18

in some sort of sense, there's

11:20

something rather mysterious about this sort

11:22

of combination in which, well, your

11:24

car is yours, but you

11:26

don't know any of the people who made your car. You know,

11:28

that's the way in which the world rather frequently

11:30

works. If you look out at

11:33

the skyline in somewhere like Chicago,

11:35

thousands and thousands of particular spaces

11:37

eat separate from all the others,

11:39

but in other sense dependent on

11:41

all the others and dependent, in

11:43

a broader sense, on the electricity

11:45

and the technology and the resources

11:48

that allow these immense conglomerations to

11:50

function and survive. Let me return

11:53

then to the origins of the

11:55

world, capitalism and tracing the ways

11:57

you evolved. What benefit do you

11:59

think it My the author is

12:01

Sue the here and now to go

12:03

back a little bit to the origins

12:05

of a certain. He gives us a

12:08

great deal more to think about when

12:10

we want to think about politics or

12:12

instead of simply thinking about I, the

12:15

property or the division of labor, thinking

12:17

about capitalism. From the vantage point of

12:19

how over the course of time the

12:21

word has changed his connotation isn't as

12:24

a glad various different content. Sad that

12:26

and you end up having to think

12:28

about the stage and government. And law

12:31

you have to think about money

12:33

and credit and welfare. You have

12:35

to think about the relationship between

12:37

government and sovereignty or the relationship

12:39

between in it electoral system and

12:41

the property system or the relationship

12:43

between well individual lives and then

12:45

social interdependence. All he things become

12:47

more visible in looking at the

12:49

history of the wage and they

12:51

give us I think rather more

12:54

to think about than would be

12:56

possible. I think by simply taking

12:58

a snapshot for a questionnaire. About

13:00

what do you think about capitalism

13:02

Now why the take the name

13:04

at his face value or you

13:06

take the name Historically Michael Sam

13:09

is now also deals you in

13:11

the program around my gut. Reactions

13:13

are both continues. It's it's emphasis

13:15

pretty will be disingenuous musically and

13:17

such a reaction has been replaced

13:19

by noticeably more amiable view of

13:21

the phenomenon. Who might my mind

13:24

before the Swedes, it's favor by

13:26

a new book in charge of

13:28

in Defense of Capitalism debunking. Limits

13:30

he saw that is historian

13:32

answers your just redesigns woman

13:34

who now joins me from

13:36

the ruins, your book, sorts

13:38

of people's attitudes. Capitalism is

13:40

also a defensive our economic

13:43

system and comes with clueless

13:45

from free market think tanks.

13:47

know what is it that

13:49

makes you feel this capitalism

13:51

needed to be so strenuously

13:53

defended? Almost every capitalism is

13:55

under attack starting with Latin

13:57

America. Edmunds Zero, the voted

13:59

for. Mr. Percent in Columbia

14:01

in Peru. the own exceptional is

14:03

option to know if you look

14:06

at every the United States according

14:08

to the Index of Economic Freedom

14:10

from a Heritage Foundation the United

14:12

States half now the rust right

14:14

thing for economic freedom since the

14:16

start of the index and Ninety

14:18

Ninety Five by the way. this

14:20

is also true for the Uk

14:22

and if I'm up to my

14:25

time for Insomnia on several in

14:27

Europe, we go there and back

14:29

in the direction. Of a planned

14:31

economy and so I have a feeling

14:33

it's time to defend capitalism or your

14:36

distance itself is as if you have

14:38

a study specially commissioned Ipsos Mori poll

14:40

a surgical countries which is conducted in

14:43

the United States and in some small

14:45

countries in Europe, South America, Africa and

14:47

Asia and tell me why indices and

14:50

you actually avoided you voted the word

14:52

capitalism to some of the questions. For

14:54

the first set of questions we avoided

14:56

to use read capitalism because fall out

14:59

of paper. If the world

15:01

capitalism has negative connotations and we

15:03

wanted to find out how much

15:05

has it's it's over the right

15:08

and how much thought The road

15:10

stance fox. So we had six

15:12

questions. supermarket Sweep prostate of them

15:15

In the next set of questions

15:17

will use Right Populism We as

15:19

people now think about the World

15:21

Capitalism. What are your think if

15:24

you're here this right would or

15:26

what does you associate prosperity or

15:28

innovation or create corruption? Freedom. All

15:31

and by magic rotations. And

15:33

then we had a another

15:35

set of eight hims statements

15:38

as for example, capitalism is

15:40

responsible for hunger, poverty, or

15:42

capitalists loose to called inequality

15:45

all positive sense as capitalism

15:47

is economic freedom. And then

15:49

we calculated the. Average.

15:52

Percentage of positives and negatives

15:54

answers since you tell me

15:56

where you found out ruinously

15:58

the most positive. towards capitalism.

16:00

Poland is the most pro-capitalist country, and

16:03

I think it's not a surprise, because

16:05

if you think that Poland was one

16:07

of the first countries in Europe in

16:09

the 80s in socialist times and

16:12

now since decades it feels post-trampian

16:14

and standard of living increased so

16:16

much, so I was not surprised

16:19

that Poland is at the top.

16:22

Number two is the United States, and then South

16:24

Korea is number three. Also not a

16:26

surprise. South Korea was even in

16:28

the 60s one of the first countries

16:31

in the world. If you go there

16:33

today it's even more modern in some

16:35

aspects than in Europe. Number five, Japan

16:37

number five, was Nigeria. The problem is

16:39

a surprise, of course, for the first

16:42

glance, but in Nigeria, capitalism is

16:45

a great hope. They associate capitalism

16:47

with a standard of living as

16:49

we have it here in Europe

16:52

and the United States, so it's

16:54

not a bad word. The Czech

16:56

Republic was the next one, also not

16:58

a surprise, because similar to Poland,

17:01

people in the Czech Republic

17:03

have experienced that capitalism work.

17:05

The next one was Vietnam.

17:07

They call themselves socialist and

17:09

with a communist party, but

17:12

I can guarantee to you that it's much

17:14

easier to find a Marxist at a

17:16

university in the United States or in

17:18

Europe and in fact in

17:21

Vietnam. They have very entrepreneurial

17:23

capitalist way of thinking. And then this

17:25

was a big surprise. Argentina was

17:27

one of the pro-capitalist countries

17:29

and we were confirmed later

17:32

because now Argentina's voted for

17:34

so-called and I call capitalists,

17:37

Yabia Mille. They

17:39

hope for a solution for all their

17:41

problems in capitalism. Now you found that

17:43

the British were more ambivalent about the

17:46

free market than Americans. Only

17:48

14% of people in the UK

17:50

believe that capitalism has improved conditions

17:52

for ordinary people. What did

17:54

the survey reveal here? I was a

17:57

little bit surprised because the UK didn't

17:59

make it back. has this image of

18:01

a capitalist country similar to the United

18:03

States. But according to our penalty today,

18:06

it's not true. The majority of people

18:08

have an anti-capitalist view, similar to

18:11

my country. To Germany. So this was

18:13

a little bit of a surprise for

18:15

me. What role politics, education

18:17

and income, what role do they

18:19

play in determining people's views of

18:21

capitalism and what were the main

18:23

differences between countries in those respects?

18:25

It's not a surprise that in

18:27

most of the countries, people who

18:29

position themselves as more or

18:32

less leading are more anti-capitalist and

18:34

people who position themselves more on

18:36

the moderate or even the far

18:39

right are more pro-capitalist, but there

18:41

are differences between countries. For

18:43

example, there is a group

18:45

of countries where the more

18:47

they tend to the political

18:50

right, the more they embrace

18:52

capitalism. This is true for,

18:54

for example, the United States,

18:56

Sweden, Chile, South Korea, Spain

18:58

or Switzerland. But there are

19:00

more countries, however, where different

19:02

correlation holds, for example, in

19:04

Germany, Netherlands, France, also in

19:07

the UK. The moderate right wingers

19:09

have the most positive attitude towards

19:11

capitalism or the least negative

19:14

attitude, while respondents who are

19:16

even further to the right

19:18

are less approving of capitalism.

19:20

So these are differences between

19:22

countries. And if we speak

19:24

about education, in almost

19:26

every country, the better educated are

19:28

more in favor of capitalism than

19:31

people who are not with a

19:33

basic education. With income, it's not

19:35

a surprise. In most of the

19:38

countries, the people who earn

19:40

more are more in favor of

19:42

capitalism is not a surprise. But

19:44

there are also countries where there's not

19:47

such a huge difference between people who

19:49

earn more or who earn less. You

19:51

do point out that in the United

19:54

States there's a big difference between older

19:56

and young Americans. Was that true for

19:58

other countries as well? Well, were

20:00

the young, typically more critical of

20:02

capitalism in other countries? This

20:05

huge difference is only one country in our story,

20:07

and this is in the United States. And

20:10

this is an extreme difference because the

20:12

older Americans, I mean people older than

20:15

60 years in my age, they

20:17

are extreme pro capitalism. And

20:20

the younger ones, there are a lot

20:22

of young people who are really very

20:24

negative towards capitalism. There are a lot

20:26

of other countries where there's not such

20:28

a big difference between age groups. Let's

20:31

talk about gender. I mean, you found that

20:33

in most of the countries you looked at,

20:36

male respondents were more

20:38

positive towards capitalism than women.

20:41

Expand on that for me. Yes, this is

20:43

absolutely true. I think in almost every

20:45

country with the exception of

20:48

Vietnam, women were more negative.

20:51

After doing this poll, I visited almost

20:53

all of these countries, and then it's

20:56

much easier, of course, to understand the

20:58

results of the polls. If

21:00

you speak with people and you try to

21:02

understand it. So I think this is only

21:05

the first step, what I did. And

21:08

I hope that there will be

21:10

other people who try to explain

21:12

what is the reason for these

21:14

differences. The anti-capitalist views do seem

21:16

to be pretty mainstream in many

21:18

countries. And you want to say

21:21

that's because people believe myths, including

21:23

claims such as capitalism leads to

21:25

new economic and financial crises. It's

21:27

responsible for environmental destruction and climate

21:30

change that it leads towards. Let's

21:32

take a couple of these, that

21:34

capitalism leads to growing inequality and

21:37

also to hunger and poverty. One

21:39

of the reasons people will oppose

21:41

it. I mean, how might you

21:43

debunk those claims? If you

21:45

look at the facts 20 years

21:48

ago, before capitalism, 90% of

21:50

the worldwide population lived in

21:52

extreme poverty, 9%. Today

21:55

it's less than 9%. And

21:57

what's even more important, half of this reduction.

22:00

happened over the last decade. Even in the

22:02

beginning of the 80s, 43% of the people

22:04

in the

22:06

world lived in extreme poverty. And

22:09

you see it everywhere in the

22:11

world. As soon as you introduce

22:13

small free market, as soon as

22:15

you reduce the power of the

22:17

state over the economy, the standard

22:19

of living increase, and this is

22:21

the best fight against handgun property

22:23

in China, even in the end

22:25

of the 50s, 45 million

22:28

people died as a result

22:30

of the biggest socialist experiment in

22:32

history. This was Mao Zedong's so-called

22:35

trade leap forward. 45 million people

22:37

died most from the ratio. This

22:39

was the biggest socialist experiment in

22:41

history. And even in the beginning

22:44

of the 80s, 88% of

22:46

people in China lived in

22:48

extreme poverty. These are

22:51

opinion-based economic reforms, introduced private property,

22:53

which used the role of the

22:55

state. And the result was that

22:57

Mao, the number of people living

22:59

in extreme poverty in China, decreased

23:01

from 88 to less than 1%.

23:04

Is crystal clear? It's nonsense.

23:06

That's a capital of the least standard

23:09

in poverty. So why do people believe

23:11

this is? We have to

23:13

admit that the end of

23:15

the problems are much better

23:17

in population and poverty. People

23:20

like me, often with the large white

23:22

events, but they have to be managed.

23:25

People believe that socialism has dropped,

23:27

namely the last 100 years. Our

23:29

socialist experiments failed

23:31

without any exception. And to position

23:33

such a system, socialism, as human,

23:36

and on the other hand, position

23:38

such a system as capitalism that

23:40

is responsible for the biggest reduction

23:42

of poverty in the history to

23:44

position it as inhuman, I think,

23:47

you have to be a real

23:49

population genius to do this. If

23:51

we're talking about inhumanity or if

23:53

we're talking about some of the

23:55

downsides of capitalist societies, you surely

23:57

have to agree that economically, These

24:00

are societies which are fundamentally unequal.

24:02

What do you say about this

24:04

inequality which seems to be an

24:06

absolute fundamental feature of capitalist societies?

24:08

First, it's not only a feature

24:10

of capitalist societies. I was in

24:12

Albania, for example, or in Romania,

24:15

where the former socialist dictators, to

24:17

all the people from the Communist

24:19

Party in Albania, they lived in

24:21

a part of Tirana, what you

24:23

call the plug, create shops where

24:25

they could buy everything and create

24:27

restaurants and the rest of the

24:29

country lived in extreme poverty.

24:32

So first of all, socialist countries

24:34

were really unimpressed. On the other

24:36

hand, I talked about China today,

24:38

or Vietnam. I have no one,

24:41

because let's go back to Mao's

24:43

time because we were more equal.

24:46

This is true. In socialist times

24:48

in China, there was not a

24:50

single billionaire. Today you have as

24:52

many billionaires in China as in

24:55

the United States, but people don't

24:57

care about it. I think inequality

24:59

is something for envious people.

25:01

If there's someone who has more than

25:03

me, I think we should

25:05

focus on the question of poverty and

25:07

not on the question of inequality. What

25:10

I want to do now is to

25:12

play you a BBC One news at

25:14

sixth clip. This is from the 15th

25:17

of September, 2008. It's

25:20

the worst banking crisis since the Wall Street

25:22

crash of 1929 and

25:25

the Great Depression which followed. 70

25:28

years on, the successes of those

25:30

Wall Street traders led a savage

25:33

sell-off of financial stocks as confidence

25:35

in their value evaporated. President

25:37

Bush tried to reassure the nation. In

25:39

the long run, I'm confident that our

25:41

capital markets are flexible and resilient and

25:44

can deal with these adjustments. Famous

25:47

last words from President Bush

25:49

as banks collapsed and the

25:51

2008 financial crisis spread to

25:53

the UK and globally. A

25:56

final question for you, Rainier.

25:58

Your analysis describes... differences

26:00

between individual countries, whether

26:03

by income groups, age groups and

26:05

so on, but it can't necessarily

26:07

explain those differences, can it? We

26:10

had that financial crisis and we

26:12

had two recessions within 20 years

26:14

and it's pretty obvious that many

26:16

people are struggling with housing, job

26:18

security and cost of living crisis.

26:20

Might this be why there is

26:22

a resurgence, as you seem to

26:24

be detecting in anti-capitalist beliefs, rather

26:26

than because of any investment in

26:28

false myths? I have no

26:30

theory about capitalism. I'm an

26:33

historian and I hope I

26:35

can find the truth in the face

26:37

and always compare this was

26:39

a part of society with a

26:41

really system society. I think it

26:43

would be as fair or unfair

26:45

as I would compare your real

26:48

life marriage with a romantic love

26:50

novel. No, this is not fair.

26:52

I compare North and South Korea,

26:54

East and West Germany, or

26:56

China in the time of Mao Tsutong

26:58

and China in the time of things

27:00

are things reforms to look in the

27:02

end what works and what does not

27:04

work. What has been the next next

27:07

time poverty and what makes them poor?

27:09

In 1970, Venezuela was one of

27:11

the 20 richest countries in the

27:13

world. Compare it a little to

27:15

the UK. Then I made a

27:18

big mistake, Peter and Venezuela, at the end of

27:20

the night it's voted for socialist.

27:22

But again, it has early socialist

27:24

experiment to hold it. There

27:26

are 1,000% in social rights to

27:29

only one quarter of the population

27:31

platform Venezuela. And this is such

27:33

a tragedy if they fail. They

27:35

tell you this wasn't free of

27:38

socialism, but next time of course

27:40

it will work. And this is

27:42

where we must stop. Thank you

27:44

so much, Uranus, this, old man.

27:46

There's really no shortage of exemplary

27:49

stories about all those one-time scourges

27:51

of capitalism that readily succumb to

27:53

the delights of capitalism as their

27:55

fortune changes. So it's appropriate perhaps that

27:58

I give these last words on the subject. to

28:00

a liver putty and to Paul McCartney.

28:02

Somebody said to me, Ah,

28:05

but the Beatles were anti-materialistic.

28:07

That's a huge myth. John

28:09

and I literally used to

28:11

sit down and say, Now,

28:14

let's write a swimming pool. That

28:36

was a Thinking Allowed podcast from

28:38

BBC Radio 4. You'll find a

28:40

treasure trove of other Thinking Allowed

28:42

programs on BBC Sounds. The

28:44

Post Office Horizons scandal has shocked Britain.

28:47

Post Office IT scandal which has had

28:49

so much of a public, he hasn't

28:51

it over the last... This is a

28:53

scandal of historic proportions. I've been following

28:55

the story for more than a decade.

28:57

Hearing about the suffering of sub-postmasters like

28:59

Joe Hamilton and Alan Bates. It was

29:01

just horrendous. The whole game

29:03

is horrendous. I was told you can't

29:06

afford to take on Post Office. And

29:08

about their extraordinary fight for justice. What

29:11

was motivating you? Well, it was

29:13

wrong, wasn't it? Listen to the

29:15

true story firsthand from the people

29:17

who lived it in the great

29:19

Post Office trial from BBC Radio

29:21

4 with me, Nick Wallace. Subscribe

29:24

on BBC Sounds.