Democracy’s existential crisis

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Summary

In this episode of The Gray Area, host Sean Illing speaks with writer, filmmaker, and organizer Astra Taylor about her new book, The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together as Things Fall Apart. The conversation centers on the gap between the ideal of democracy and its reality, framing insecurity not just as a personal feeling but as a systemic feature of capitalism.

Taylor argues that capitalism functions as an “insecurity machine,” severing people from traditional sources of stability (like communal land rights during the enclosure movements) to create a dependent workforce. This manufactured insecurity contrasts with an inherent, existential insecurity—our shared human vulnerability, mortality, and need for care—which she explores through the ancient “myth of Cura.” The discussion posits that acknowledging this shared, existential condition can be a starting point for building solidarity, rather than allowing insecurity to fuel resentment and division.

The dialogue traces Taylor’s intellectual and activist journey, from her unschooled childhood to co-founding the Debt Collective. She emphasizes that insecurity is a universal condition under capitalism, affecting even those who appear to be “winning,” as their security (like retirement funds or home equity) is often tied to unstable markets or ecologically destructive systems. The conversation critiques consumer culture for exploiting personal insecurities and offering commodities as poor substitutes for genuine community, dignity, and rest.

Illing and Taylor discuss the practical challenges of democracy, including political corruption, atomization, and the lack of meaningful avenues for participation. Taylor stresses that rebuilding democratic power requires slow, collective organizing—“there are no shortcuts”—and reclaiming concepts like freedom and security from conservative narratives. She advocates for building grassroots movements that address economic inequality and corporate capture of government as foundational to achieving real security and democratic renewal.

The episode concludes on a note of cautious hope, citing the late David Graeber’s idea that “the ultimate hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make and could just as easily make differently.” Taylor sees the current questioning of neoliberal consensus as an opportunity for organized, meaning-driven action to shape a more secure and democratic world.

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Recommendations

Books

• The Age of Insecurity, Coming Together as Things Fall Apart — Astra Taylor’s new book, which argues capitalism functions as an ‘insecurity machine’ and explores how shared human vulnerability can be a foundation for democratic solidarity.
• Democracy May Not Exist, But We’ll Miss It When It’s Gone — Taylor’s previous book, which wrestles with the ideals and realities of democracy, emerging from questions raised during the Occupy Wall Street movement.
• The People’s Platform — Taylor’s book about the commercialization of media and the distortions caused by an ad-driven media ecosystem.
• Critique of Security — A book by political theorist Mark Neocleous, which provided Taylor with the insight that the word ‘insecurity’ entered common usage in the 17th century alongside the rise of market society.
• No Shortcuts — A book by labor organizer Jane McAlevey, which inspires Taylor with its argument that there are no shortcuts to building power, only slow, collective organizing work.
• Decades of Decadence — A book by Marco Rubio mentioned by Sean Illing as an example of conservatives attempting to critique neoliberal capitalism and use the language of security.

Concepts

• The Myth of Cura — An ancient parable where the figure Cura (Care) fashions the first human from clay. Taylor uses it to illustrate that humans are made by and forever need care, representing our existential insecurity and vulnerability.
• The Enclosure Movement — The historical process in England where common lands were privatized, severing peasants from traditional subsistence rights and creating the landless working class necessary for capitalism—a prime example of manufactured insecurity.

Organizations

• The Debt Collective — The first union for debtors in the United States, co-founded by Astra Taylor. It is cited as a practical example of building collective power from shared economic insecurity.

People

• David Graeber — Late anthropologist and activist cited by Taylor. He roped her into Occupy Wall Street and helped form the group that began the Debt Collective. He highlighted the ‘everyday communism’ of mutual aid and collaboration.
• Jane McAlevey — A labor organizer and writer whose work, particularly the book ‘No Shortcuts,’ inspires Taylor’s thinking on the slow, necessary work of building democratic power.
• John Holt — A former public school teacher who coined the term ‘unschooling,’ the educational philosophy Taylor was raised with.

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Topic Timeline

• 00:03:06 — Introduction to Astra Taylor and her multifaceted work — Sean Illing introduces guest Astra Taylor, a writer, organizer, and filmmaker. Taylor discusses her identity as primarily a writer and how her various forms of work—writing, filmmaking, organizing—are interconnected experiments with ideas and praxis. She traces this approach back to her unusual unschooled childhood, where she cultivated social critique from a young age.
• 00:07:09 — The central theme: bridging democracy’s ideal and reality — Taylor confirms that her overarching project is about the gap between democracy’s ideal (the people rule) and its complicated reality. She connects this to her new book, The Age of Insecurity, which shifts the focus from inequality to insecurity—both as a subjective emotion and an objective material condition. She argues that understanding people’s feelings of insecurity is key to organizing and rebuilding democratic possibility.
• 00:10:42 — Existential insecurity and the myth of Cura — Taylor explains the book’s existentialist foundation, distinguishing between ineradicable ‘existential insecurity’ (our shared mortality and vulnerability) and ‘manufactured insecurity’ produced by capitalism. She recounts the ancient ‘myth of Cura,’ where the first human is fashioned from clay by Care (Cura), to illustrate that humans are constituted by and forever need care. This vulnerability, she argues, can be a gift and a basis for solidarity if faced directly.
• 00:15:44 — Insecurity as a double-edged sword for solidarity — The conversation explores how insecurity can be a source of shared struggle or of resentment and fear, depending on the stories we tell. Taylor, drawing from her work with the Debt Collective, argues that insecurity is universal under capitalism because there’s no safety net and no ceiling, keeping everyone in a state of scramble. Recognizing this universality could help build broader, majoritarian movements for a reimagined security.
• 00:22:01 — Historical roots: insecurity and the enclosure movement — Taylor discusses the historical emergence of the word ‘insecurity’ in the 17th/18th centuries, coinciding with the rise of market society. She details the enclosure movement in England, where common lands were privatized, severing peasants from their means of subsistence and creating the ‘free’ working class necessary for capitalism. This history shows capitalism was born of manufactured insecurity and must perpetuate it to function.
• 00:26:27 — How insecurity affects even the ‘winners’ — Taylor argues that even those who appear to be ‘winning’ in capitalism are set up to fail. Their security—through mortgages, 401(k)s, home equity—is tied to unstable markets and often perpetuates the very crises (like climate change or housing unaffordability) that threaten everyone. This creates a system where everyone is on a treadmill of economic precarity, underscoring the need for collective, systemic change.
• 00:29:34 — Consumerism, advertising, and manufactured desire — Taylor shares a personal story about colliding with consumer culture as an unschooled ‘weirdo’ kid to illustrate how advertising and consumerism exploit insecurities. She argues that ads constantly tell us we are not enough, selling commodities as surrogates for non-commodifiable sources of security like community, dignity, and rest. Billions spent on advertising divert resources from public goods and a just transition.
• 00:38:01 — Challenges and hopes for democracy — Illing raises his own doubts about democracy, citing historical skeptics. Taylor acknowledges democracy is a ‘total mess’ and that language and practice are always corrupted. However, she finds hope in evidence of everyday human collaboration and care. She argues power-sharing is a safety measure against oligarchy, and that we are still relatively new at trying democracy in a broadly inclusive sense.
• 00:41:00 — Overcoming atomization and building democratic power — They discuss the challenge of atomization and the lack of avenues for meaningful democratic participation. Taylor emphasizes there are ‘no shortcuts’ to building power; it requires slowly reweaving civic associations and mediating institutions. She connects this to her film ‘What Is Democracy?’, where many people couldn’t define it, arguing it’s because we aren’t invited to practice democracy in daily life (work, school).
• 00:43:51 — Urgent fights and interconnected struggles — When asked about the most urgent issue, Taylor argues all fights (climate, debt, labor) are interconnected through the root problem of corporate capture and wealth concentration. The strategic task is to critique political economy and build grassroots power. She advises listeners to focus not on what they can do alone, but on how they can join with others to build collective power in their communities or workplaces.
• 00:46:05 — Reclaiming the language of freedom and security — Taylor discusses the need for the left to reclaim concepts like ‘freedom’ and ‘security’ from conservative narratives. She cites FDR’s connection between freedom and material security. When the left abandons these ideas, the right offers twisted versions (like Marco Rubio’s). Part of her work is reclaiming words like ‘democracy’ and ‘security’ to imagine progressive, nurturing versions of them.
• 00:50:55 — Conclusion: the world is something we make — The conversation concludes with a quote from David Graeber: ‘the ultimate hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make and could just as easily make differently.’ Taylor reflects on inevitable change and the ‘everyday communism’ of mutual aid that already exists. She finds meaning and intellectual pleasure in the collective work of figuring out how to shape change for the better, despite the Sisyphean nature of the struggle.

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Episode Info

• Podcast: The Gray Area with Sean Illing
• Author: Vox
• Category: Society & Culture Philosophy News Politics News Commentary
• Published: 2023-09-11T09:00:00Z
• Duration: 00:51:17

References

• URL PocketCasts: https://pocketcasts.com/podcast/the-gray-area-with-sean-illing/1d3ce9a0-ae3d-0133-2e33-6dc413d6d41d/democracys-existential-crisis/0d1e393b-4f81-48e7-b050-6568f1180731
• Episode UUID: 0d1e393b-4f81-48e7-b050-6568f1180731

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Podcast Info

• Name: The Gray Area with Sean Illing
• Type: episodic
• Site: https://www.vox.com/vox-conversations-podcast
• UUID: 1d3ce9a0-ae3d-0133-2e33-6dc413d6d41d

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Transcript

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[00:00:57] which is that the people rule.

[00:00:59] And then there’s the reality of democracy, which in our country, at least, is complicated.

[00:01:06] The state of democracy has been a popular discourse in recent years, to put it mildly.

[00:01:13] There is a whole genre of books and think pieces about how democracy is dying and how to save it.

[00:01:22] But I’d say the majority of that work focuses on the sorts of threats

[00:01:27] that we’ve all come to know, like authoritarian leaders, or, you know,

[00:01:32] insurrections during peaceful transfers of power.

[00:01:40] But what I haven’t seen very often are defenses of democracy as an idea and a way of life.

[00:01:47] It’s almost like this is just taken for granted.

[00:01:52] But if democracy really is in danger, then what we need more than ever

[00:01:57] is a reminder of why it’s worth defending in the first place.

[00:02:05] I’m Sean Elling, and this is The Gray Area.

[00:02:12] Today’s guest is Astra Taylor.

[00:02:15] Astra is a writer, organizer, filmmaker.

[00:02:20] What I admire about her is that she’s always balancing ideas and action.

[00:02:25] She’s a student.

[00:02:27] She’s a student of political theory, but also someone who’s very much engaged in the world.

[00:02:33] Among her long list of accomplishments is co-founding the first union for debtors,

[00:02:38] the Debt Collective.

[00:02:40] She also wrote and directed a documentary about the history and state of democracy.

[00:02:45] She’s here to talk about her new book, The Age of Insecurity, Coming Together as Things Fall Apart.

[00:02:52] It’s a book about the human condition as much as it is about democracy.

[00:02:56] And for her, connecting those two things is actually the whole point.

[00:03:06] Astra Taylor, welcome to The Gray Area.

[00:03:08] I’m so happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

[00:03:10] You are so active in so many spaces.

[00:03:13] You write, you make films, you’re a real organizer.

[00:03:18] When people ask you what you do, I’m just curious. What do you say?

[00:03:21] Yeah, I feel a little bit actually kind of ashamed sometimes of the multi-hyphenated,

[00:03:26] like the this and the this. So sometimes I’ll just say I’m a writer. It’s sort of the easiest.

[00:03:30] And it’s the role I actually feel the most inclined towards.

[00:03:36] I feel at home when I’m writing. I’m someone who has always written,

[00:03:39] and I’ve always written sort of nonfiction social commentary since I was a kid.

[00:03:44] I’m happiest when I’m actually researching. If I could choose any title in the world,

[00:03:47] it would be reader. But then again, all of these seemingly different modes of expression,

[00:03:54] the writing, the filmmaking,

[00:03:56] and the organizing actually are really one thing. I mean, it’s experimenting with ideas.

[00:04:01] It’s kind of praxis, which is a clunky word I don’t really like. But you learn, you theorize,

[00:04:06] and then you try to do stuff, and then you learn from the doing, and then express it in these

[00:04:10] different forms, whether that’s a book or an essay or a film or an organization.

[00:04:16] What drew you to this kind of work and really this kind of life? Because it really is more

[00:04:23] than just work for you. I mean, you talk a lot about your upbringing in the book,

[00:04:26] which is a lot of work. But what drew you to this kind of work and really this kind of life?

[00:04:26] I’m sure it’s going to come up here at some point, but it sounds like you had the political

[00:04:30] gene, as it were, pretty early on. Yeah. This book that we’re talking about,

[00:04:34] The Age of Insecurity, draws on my childhood. And I did have a really unusual childhood. I

[00:04:39] grew up in Georgia, in Athens, Georgia, and I didn’t have to go to school if I didn’t want to.

[00:04:44] We called ourselves unschoolers, which is a word that comes from a former public school teacher

[00:04:49] named John Holt. And what I chose to do in my unschooling freedom was to,

[00:04:56] to agitate in my own way. And I, one of the big things I did was I had a zine, basically,

[00:05:02] a kind of newsletter about environmental issues, animal rights, and essentially trying to incite a

[00:05:06] kind of kid revolution against the grownups. The problem was I was an unschooler, so I didn’t know

[00:05:10] any other kids to recruit. I mean, I knew a handful, but one of the problems with unschooling

[00:05:15] was the social isolation. So I can see the threat of what I’m doing going back to that moment,

[00:05:21] where I was writing about things I cared about, about what needed to change. So

[00:05:25] I’m very consistent. I’ve sort of been doing this kind of work for a long time, and I can’t really

[00:05:30] say what it was that inspired me, but I was given the space to kind of cultivate this social critique,

[00:05:36] I guess, from a young age, and I’m still doing it.

[00:05:39] You know, I try not to make these convos just an abject love fest, but there are so many people

[00:05:47] who think they’re political today, but in fact are really just hobbyist. And what I respect most

[00:05:55] is that you really are on the ground, organizing, mobilizing, doing the work of building power.

[00:06:03] And I have enormous respect for that. And I just wanted to say that.

[00:06:06] I mean, that means a lot. I know that you don’t suffer fools, so I actually really

[00:06:09] am flattered by that. And I almost have this like, they’re kind of seeming cool words,

[00:06:15] but like authenticity, integrity, a kind of like romantic idea that what you say should connect

[00:06:20] with what you do. And there should be a kind of coincidence between your values and how you live.

[00:06:25] Right? Like I’m attracted to the idea of virtues, of values that we put into practice. And

[00:06:29] for me, it would just be very strange to be spouting off about political shoulds, right?

[00:06:35] People should do this. They should do that. If I wasn’t trying to enact them and experiment. And so

[00:06:39] the thing I’m telling people to do is we have to build collective power. So then it only feels

[00:06:43] right that I’m trying to build an organization that includes other people. And I do think that

[00:06:48] ties to unschooling and this educational philosophy I was raised with where, you know, you’re supposed

[00:06:53] to learn by doing, learn by doing. And I think that’s a really important thing. And I think that’s

[00:06:55] learned by experimenting, learned by trying things out in the world. Nothing was abstract

[00:06:58] academic exercise, right? All very grounded, kind of hands-on, even if it’s quote-unquote like

[00:07:04] intellectual philosophical subject matter. It does seem to me like all of your work,

[00:07:09] one way or the other, is about this gap between the ideal of democracy and the reality of it,

[00:07:17] and what it would take to bridge that gap. First of all, is that how you see your overall project?

[00:07:24] And if it is,

[00:07:25] or if it’s close enough, how is this new book an extension of that?

[00:07:30] I do think that that’s an accurate way of describing my work. I don’t think I knew

[00:07:34] that till I wrote the book, Democracy May Not Exist, But We’ll Miss It When It’s Gone,

[00:07:38] you know, which I started working on in 2014 and 15, formally, wrestling with questions that

[00:07:44] actually emerged out of the Occupy Wall Street movement, where there was a lot of invocations of

[00:07:49] small d democracy, right? And an attempt to kind of have a direct or participatory democracy,

[00:07:55] that didn’t work in a lot of ways, but was provocative to me. And so I started really

[00:08:00] thinking through it. But yeah, democracy is a word that really matters and resonates. And to me,

[00:08:04] it really goes back to the Greek roots of it, which is demos, the people have the power,

[00:08:09] kratos, you know, who is the people? And how do we rule together? How do we enact that,

[00:08:15] or at least become more democratic? I do see democracy as a kind of always elusive horizon,

[00:08:22] right? We keep democratizing, we keep trying to figure out how to do that.

[00:08:25] And this book is certainly of a piece of, again, this book is called The Age of Insecurity. And,

[00:08:29] you know, in a nutshell, what it’s saying is, actually, since Occupy, really,

[00:08:33] we’ve been talking a lot about inequality. That’s been at the center of our political discourse,

[00:08:38] and for good reason, because inequality keeps growing. 10 billionaire men hold the wealth of

[00:08:43] over half the people on the planet, and the upper 1% keeps being able to sort of get their hands on

[00:08:48] new wealth that’s being generated. But inequality just kind of describes a snapshot in time,

[00:08:55] the gulf between the haves and the have-nots, right? And so what I’m saying in the book is,

[00:08:59] well, what if we look actually at this condition through the lens of insecurity? Because insecurity

[00:09:04] describes how people feel. It’s an emotion. But it’s also a word that’s used to describe

[00:09:09] objective material conditions. You can be food insecure, housing insecure, you can be

[00:09:13] ecologically insecure. You know, talking about the emotions, the affects of our political life

[00:09:19] are really key. And they relate exactly to this question of democracy, right? Because how citizens

[00:09:25] it’s going to have a huge impact on the kind of policies they gravitate towards or don’t,

[00:09:31] who they think of as their enemy or their allies. You have to tap into people’s emotions if you want

[00:09:36] to organize. I mean, I think building the Debt Collective, which is the country’s first union

[00:09:40] for debtors, has really shown me the power of emotions, right? This book is offering a lens,

[00:09:45] a way of understanding the sort of political and emotional landscape we’re in right now

[00:09:50] with the goal of giving us a toolkit that we might use to help

[00:09:55] people feel like they’re in a position of security. And I think that’s a really important

[00:09:55] repair and rebuild democratic possibility. This book, I mean, again, one of the things I’d like

[00:10:01] about your writing is that it’s a lot of different things at once. There’s social theory, there’s

[00:10:06] philosophy, it’s policy, advocacy. You know, you’re always toggling back and forth between

[00:10:11] ideas and action. I mean, I think you’ve used a democratic theorist, but you’re also in the world

[00:10:16] trying to get shit done. And this really feels like an existentialist book. It reads like an

[00:10:23] existentialist theory of democracy.

[00:10:25] And builds a case for solidarity and democratic action on the basis of that theory. And the

[00:10:31] existentialism part is super interesting to me, and that won’t surprise any listener of the show.

[00:10:36] And you actually open with an old myth about the human condition. I wanted to start there and ask

[00:10:42] you to tell me a little bit about that and why it’s so important, not just to your political

[00:10:46] philosophy in general, but really the vision you paint in the book.

[00:10:49] Well, I mean, people can see me smiling when you said this is an existentialist book. I mean,

[00:10:53] it is, and that influence is there.

[00:10:55] Right? Which is, we have to make our own meaning in the world, in the void. So let’s make good

[00:11:01] meaning together. But the book, one thing I do is I distinguish between two types of insecurity,

[00:11:07] existential insecurity, which is the echo of existentialism is right there, right? The fact

[00:11:11] that we are mortal, fragile beings subject to being psychologically and physically wounded,

[00:11:17] who are dependent always on other people and structures, and who are beings toward death,

[00:11:24] to use a high,

[00:11:25] metagarian phrase, right? We’re going to die, and we can flee from that, or we can realize it and

[00:11:31] stare it in the face. That’s the ultimate sort of existential challenge, right? So existential

[00:11:35] insecurity is something that just is. It’s ineradicable. And then I talk about manufactured

[00:11:41] insecurity, and a kind of premise of the book is that capitalism is, yes, a generator of profits

[00:11:46] and inequality, but it’s also a generator of insecurity, that actually insecurity is a central

[00:11:52] component of the way capitalism functions, because, you know, it’s not just about the

[00:11:55] you first have to create conditions where people are job insecure before they will go and work

[00:12:00] crappy jobs, right? Create conditions where people feel a kind of lack so that they’ll go

[00:12:05] in endlessly byproducts. So there’s existential insecurity, manufactured insecurity. And the book

[00:12:09] opens with something called the myth of Cura. Should I tell it? Should I just quickly say what

[00:12:14] the myth is? Yeah, yeah, sure. The myth of Cura is, you know, people are going to hear resonances

[00:12:19] with all sorts of familiar Greek Roman myths, for example, the myth of Prometheus. But essentially,

[00:12:23] Cura was walking,

[00:12:25] by, she was crossing, this is the word that’s always used, she was crossing a river. She noticed

[00:12:30] that the soil was sort of muddy and clay, and she stops and she fashions a figure, she fashions the

[00:12:35] first human being. Then Jupiter, the god, happens to be passing by, and she says, will you blow life

[00:12:41] into this figure? And he does. And suddenly, human beings are made. And Cura wants to name it.

[00:12:47] And Jupiter says, no, I should get to name it. I breathed life into it. All you did was make it.

[00:12:52] And then Mother Earth rises, and Mother Earth says, well, hold on,

[00:12:54] you made it out of me. I should get to name this figure. So they’re all having a quarrel,

[00:12:59] deciding who should take credit for this creature. When Saturn, the god of time,

[00:13:03] comes down, and they say, hey, settle this dispute. We can’t decide who should name

[00:13:07] the figure. And he says, okay, well, basically, it’s not going to be named for any of you.

[00:13:12] But Cura will possess the body as long as it lives. So Care will possess the body. And then

[00:13:17] when the creature dies, the spirit will go to heaven, to Jupiter, and the body will go back

[00:13:21] to Mother Earth. But, you know, I’m going to name this creature.

[00:13:25] Homo, hummus, mud, right? Like, we’re named of dirt. We’re named of mud in this creature,

[00:13:30] which is a really humbling tale. But the point is, we are made by Care. We’re possessed by Care.

[00:13:35] And so I think to anyone who’s thinking about caring, which is a lot more, you know,

[00:13:39] feminist theories of Care these days, it’s a kind of feminist parable, very humble.

[00:13:44] The point is, we’re made by Care, and we’re kind of fated to need Care forever. So it’s

[00:13:50] not a self-aggrandizing myth of human beginnings. And so I begin with that just to,

[00:13:54] say, here’s a story that kind of speaks to our existential insecurity. And we can, instead of

[00:14:00] thinking about it in a negative way, our insecurity, our vulnerability, or our need for

[00:14:04] Care, the fact we’re constituted by Care, is actually kind of a gift from the gods, right?

[00:14:09] Like, that is actually a gift. And if we can face that, there’s amazing insight. Again, if we, you

[00:14:15] know, have that existentialist insight, or else we can flee from it and seek shelter in all sorts

[00:14:19] of destructive forms of security that ultimately undermine us in the short and long-term.

[00:14:24] What I felt and heard and saw reading the book was Camus. And listeners of the show will know

[00:14:31] all about my love for Camus. We’ve done a couple of shows about him already. And there’s something

[00:14:35] deeply Camus-ian about this book and your worldview. I mean, Camus was someone who was

[00:14:39] searching for a basis for human solidarity in an absurd, indifferent world. And his answer was in

[00:14:46] the human condition, the fact that we are creatures who share a common fate, a common vulnerability,

[00:14:52] and our dignity and morality,

[00:14:54] comes from our revolt against that condition. And your book is very much in this spirit. It’s

[00:15:00] really a starting point for thinking about democracy, really.

[00:15:04] I think that that’s exactly right. And you see in this myth, which is from over 2,000 years ago,

[00:15:07] and, you know, the way myths evolve, it’s probably much, much older, is that humans have been having

[00:15:11] this epiphany over and over in different ways, right? Like, hey, we’re all vulnerable. Maybe we

[00:15:16] should help each other out. Maybe we should accept that. And we don’t need other layers of stories to

[00:15:23] tell about it.

[00:15:24] Right? We can just face that reality. You know, what the book adds is that then what

[00:15:28] capitalism does is it prods and provokes and exploits that vulnerability in ways that aren’t

[00:15:36] inherent to human existence, and that can be changed, and that we can come together and

[00:15:40] forge that solidarity you mentioned and stand up for ourselves together.

[00:15:44] One point you make in the book is that insecurity can cut both ways. It can be a source of shared

[00:15:51] struggle or a source of resentment and fear.

[00:15:54] And which way it goes depends in large part on what stories we decide to tell ourselves. And I

[00:16:01] think the frustrating thing for you and for me is that often two things can be true at the same

[00:16:06] time. Even people on the other side can have very good reasons to be pissed off and unhappy with the

[00:16:12] status quo. But they also tend to direct their ire in the wrong direction, which is exactly what the

[00:16:18] people who benefit from the status quo need them to do. And I feel like part of what you’re doing

[00:16:24] in the book is trying to do that. And I think that’s a really good point. And I think that’s a

[00:16:24] redirect that attention in a more small-D democratic and productive direction.

[00:16:31] You know, again, I organize with debtors. You know, I’ve put so much energy. It’s hard to

[00:16:35] overstate how much blood, sweat, literal tears I have put into building the Debt Collective,

[00:16:40] working alongside people who have negative wealth, who are the most economically disenfranchised

[00:16:44] folks. But this book is saying, well, you know, there’s something universally fucked up about

[00:16:51] what’s going on. And insecurity, I think, gives a frame.

[00:16:54] For us to actually have empathy with what you’re saying, with people who we might not be in total

[00:16:59] agreement with, right? And to understand some of the factors that are motivating them, even if we

[00:17:06] don’t like where they’re going with it, right? And hopefully then giving us a way to bridge a gap and

[00:17:10] reorient and tell different stories together and build a different kind of solidarity together.

[00:17:15] Insecurity, you know, unlike poverty or debt, which is an objective financial condition, I mean,

[00:17:20] you just have to look at numbers on the page to know if somebody is in the bottom income quintile

[00:17:24] owes money to some bank or the government. Insecurity is subjective. It’s always

[00:17:30] forward-looking. It’s the fear of something coming to pass. And so, you know, somebody

[00:17:36] doesn’t have to be at rock bottom to be insecure. In fact, the point I make in the opening chapter

[00:17:40] of the book is that the way capitalism functions, everybody’s insecure because there’s no floor to

[00:17:44] catch us. There’s no safety net, you know, and there’s no ceiling. And so we’re all in this sort

[00:17:48] of vortex that causes people to feel like they constantly have to scramble no matter what.

[00:17:54] What rung of the sort of economic ladder they’re on. And so this, you know, I try to kind of keep

[00:18:00] in the book like a tight economic critique to not kind of get too lost in the universalism,

[00:18:07] but also say like, this really does affect everybody. And maybe when we see it that way,

[00:18:12] we can expand our coalition. We can build new solidarities. We can start building a majoritarian

[00:18:16] movement for a reimagined kind of security because it’s going to take a lot of people

[00:18:21] to change this. And we do not, in my opinion, this is also

[00:18:24] not so much speaking as the author of this book, but just as an organizer, like we just can’t afford

[00:18:28] to like leave power on the table or like close the door on people who might want to join our

[00:18:33] movement. We got to constantly be recruiting, constantly be reaching out, constantly trying

[00:18:37] to connect with people’s feelings and the reality of their situations.

[00:18:54] Coming up after a quick break, what can the history of the word insecurity teach us about the present?

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[00:21:54] You know, something I didn’t know is that the word insecurity didn’t enter into common usage

[00:22:01] until the 17th century, which is right around the time our modern market-driven society,

[00:22:08] capitalism, really, was sort of being built. What happened in this period? What’s worth knowing? I

[00:22:12] mean, this is the section of the book where you’re really talking about the enclosure movement,

[00:22:15] which is a bit of history that a lot of people, I suspect, might not know, but it is sort of a

[00:22:19] microcosm of what happened then and also a microcosm of the world we’re in today.

[00:22:24] Yeah. So it’s specific insight that insecurity as a term emerged in the 17th century. I owe to

[00:22:30] a British political theorist named Mark Neoclaus, and I don’t know if I’m saying his name correctly,

[00:22:34] who wrote a book called Critique of Security that really did kind of provoke my thinking. I don’t,

[00:22:40] you know, his position, he’s a left-wing theorist, is like, the word security is totally corrupt

[00:22:45] and should be thrown out, basically, right? Like, this is a tainted concept. And obviously,

[00:22:52] in my book, I’m saying security is something we need to rethink. I don’t think we can abandon

[00:22:58] the quest for security. But nevertheless, you know, he made this observation about insecurity,

[00:23:02] and etymologically, that’s true. It’s not something that really comes into usage until

[00:23:08] even later, like the 18th century, 17th, 18th century, whereas security is an old word. It’s

[00:23:14] an ancient word. It’s an ancient concept, which is interesting. And so what is happening in the

[00:23:22] rise of market society? And, you know, markets existed for a long time. Markets are nothing new.

[00:23:29] But what capitalism does is it puts markets at the center of human relationships, at the

[00:23:33] center of government, even, over time. So you start living in not a society with markets,

[00:23:38] but a market society. That’s a really different thing. And this happened in a concrete way

[00:23:44] through something you mentioned, the enclosure movement, which is essentially the privatization

[00:23:48] of land in England. And so over centuries, it was very…

[00:23:52] slow process, but a devastating one. Peasants who had traditional rights to what’s called the

[00:23:57] commons, traditional rights to sort of hunt and fish and glean for firewood or herbs or to have

[00:24:05] some livestock if they had it, those rights were taken away. So these were longstanding customary

[00:24:10] rights, communal rights to collectively manage land. And then the wealthy class basically

[00:24:16] kicked them off and privatized lands. And we’re talking about millions of acres,

[00:24:21] many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many,

[00:24:22] many, many acts of parliament chipping away and chipping away at these customary rights.

[00:24:26] And so what happens then is that’s the beginning of the creation of the working class. Because

[00:24:30] once people do not have the customary rights that enabled them to subsist, right, because they can

[00:24:35] no longer be their families, they no longer have fuel for their homes, then they end up having to

[00:24:42] migrate to cities and becoming day laborers, right? And we see the rise of urbanization and slums and

[00:24:48] the working class and the rise of sort of factory work.

[00:24:51] Instead of this farming, and that’s not to romanticize life on the commons or feudalism by

[00:24:56] any means. It’s just to say that a kind of insecurity had to be created in order for

[00:25:02] capitalism as we know it to manifest, right? People needed to be severed from the land and

[00:25:08] thus free, and I say that in air quotes, free to work for a wage in order for capitalism to gain

[00:25:14] steam. And so capitalism is born of insecurity. It’s not like insecurity is like,

[00:25:18] oh, wow, what a strange byproduct. No,

[00:25:20] capitalism is first. And again, people have to be severed from the land to be turned into this

[00:25:27] new kind of worker. And then capitalism has to keep that insecurity going. That’s why I say it’s

[00:25:32] a kind of insecurity machine. And that history is just really fascinating because, you know,

[00:25:37] you see it repeated in colonialism, right? The dispossession of people, the severing of people’s

[00:25:41] ability to provide for themselves, the privatization of land and other resources. And you also see

[00:25:48] resistance. People stood up for themselves and actually didn’t.

[00:25:50] Managed to hold the line in different ways for hundreds of years until finally

[00:25:55] those economic forces were just too big and too powerful to resist.

[00:25:59] I mean, I think it’s obvious enough all the ways that poor and working class people suffer

[00:26:06] in this world that we’ve created. But I’d say an equally important argument you make in the book

[00:26:10] is that even the people today who have means, who are air quotes winning in this economy also

[00:26:18] suffer, though.

[00:26:20] In different ways. And that may be worth saying a bit about. I mean, the fact that the world in many

[00:26:27] ways has never been better than it is now, has never been more comfortable than it is now. There

[00:26:31] have never been fewer poor people than there are right now in the world. And yet people in general

[00:26:36] seem to be less happy and more anxious. And we’ve got to honestly reckon with why that’s the case,

[00:26:44] because the answer to that is essential in any attempt to not only make the world better,

[00:26:49] but to know what a better world

[00:26:50] ought to look like.

[00:26:52] Yeah, I’m pretty emphatic about this in the book, that even those who appear to be winning,

[00:26:59] according to the logic of the capitalist game, have set themselves up to fail. And if some

[00:27:03] polling and studies are to be believed, they’re pretty miserable in some ways, too. I mean,

[00:27:07] I think the big factor right now is also just climate catastrophe. Nobody is safe on a burning

[00:27:14] planet. And, you know, there are so many examples, I think, of that. But more, it’s like, yes,

[00:27:20] people might,

[00:27:20] right, have means in the society, right? So, for example, at the Debt Collective, people are

[00:27:25] oppressed by their student loan bills, by their medical bills, dream of getting out of debt so

[00:27:29] they could maybe take on more debt to get a mortgage, to get a house, right? A fantasy that’s

[00:27:34] like becoming impossible for so many people these days. So then you’ll be paying off your mortgage,

[00:27:40] what, until you’re 70 in your 80s? I mean, people are kind of stuck on a treadmill of economic

[00:27:44] precarity. In this country, one unexpected illness or accident can devastate the financial system.

[00:27:50] Right.

[00:27:50] Right.

[00:27:50] Financial well-being. You know, we know medical debt is the leading driver of bankruptcy in this

[00:27:54] country, for example. You know, OK, so we’ve also gotten rid of public pensions. And even pensions

[00:28:01] aren’t secure. But, you know, we’ve moved people over into a kind of investment portfolio for a

[00:28:06] 1K kind of model. So then even if you’ve managed to save something up for your golden years to

[00:28:11] possibly have a retirement, you just have to anxiously watch the stock market. So the mechanisms

[00:28:15] by which people are promised security are not actually secure, right? They’re,

[00:28:20] you know, market-driven and so are subject to a kind of instability. But even worse than that,

[00:28:25] they often perpetuate the very insecurity that they ostensibly are there to remedy. So the stock

[00:28:32] in your investment portfolio is poisoning the planet and driving climate change, right? Or

[00:28:37] you’re appreciating house value, which you really only care about because you think, gosh, this might

[00:28:42] make it so I can actually live with some measure of dignity in old age, is adding to inflated

[00:28:47] housing prices that are fueling the housing crisis. And so I’m just like,

[00:28:50] we’re all stuck in these systems. The only way we’re going to be able to remake them is if we

[00:28:55] work together, if we name the problem and we start going for solutions that are actually,

[00:28:58] they’re not that mysterious.

[00:29:01] Well, I think one answer to that paradox has to do with the logic of consumerism and how that

[00:29:07] reinforces some of these insecurities we’re talking about. You deal with this in a personal

[00:29:13] way in the book. I learned a lot about you reading this. You were raised by countercultural types.

[00:29:19] Can we say hippies? Is that the preferred nomenclature?

[00:29:22] I mean, my name is not just Astra. My name is Astra Amura Tharlo.

[00:29:28] That’s beautiful, actually. But you talk about the experience of going to public school for the

[00:29:34] first time when you were young in your skimpy clothes because you didn’t care about the sorts

[00:29:38] of things and colliding with the pressures to conform and all the status games that go along

[00:29:43] with that. And we’re all familiar with that sort of thing. And on the one hand, you’re just telling

[00:29:46] a story about why it sucks to be not a normal consumer. And on the other hand, you’re just telling

[00:29:49] a story about why it sucks to be not a normal kid, whatever the hell that means. But on the other

[00:29:51] hand, it’s a microcosm of the culture of consumerism and competition and the insecurity that

[00:29:58] defines it. How do you think about consumerism and the role it plays in keeping us on this never

[00:30:04] ending hedonic treadmill? Yeah, yeah. I mean, so I didn’t have a lot of friends as an unschooler,

[00:30:11] so I did periodically try public school. Often it was not such a positive experience because I was

[00:30:16] such a raging weirdo as a kid.

[00:30:19] But, you know, it was the late 80s when I first tried fourth grade. I was eight years old.

[00:30:24] And so it was the height of this kind of Reaganism, consumer, you know, yuppie. The yuppies were on

[00:30:29] the rise, not the hippies, right? Who I just, even though it wasn’t my choice, you know, I just

[00:30:34] radiated that kind of energy. And, you know, it’s funny because I feel talking about consumerism is

[00:30:39] a bit out of style. It’s like, oh, well, of course, it’s obvious, you know, ads are bad.

[00:30:43] We’re all being sold stuff. But it’s such a huge part of our economy.

[00:30:47] And all facets of our lives, you know, from the media we consume, which is largely ad-driven. I

[00:30:53] wrote a whole book about this. It’s called The People’s Platform, about the commercialization

[00:30:57] of our media and what it means when we have a media ecosystem that’s mostly dependent on

[00:31:01] marketing and advertiser dollars. It completely distorts our political life.

[00:31:07] And I do think even if we’re aware of it, it affects our subjectivities nevertheless. I think

[00:31:12] it’s an important part of not just American, but global culture at this moment.

[00:31:17] And untold billions of dollars are spent trying to shape our desires and shape our conceptions of

[00:31:24] ourselves, our conceptions about what’s possible, our conceptions about who we could be. As I say

[00:31:29] in the beginning of the book, no advertising will ever tell you that you’re enough and it’s the

[00:31:32] world that needs changing, right? Something’s wrong with you. And those ads are literally there

[00:31:37] to sort of, again, poke and prod at our insecurities. You know, for me, I think what was

[00:31:41] interesting about my childhood is that I was kind of insulated from that. And so when I did encounter

[00:31:47] American consumer culture, it was with almost like I was a visitor to another planet or something,

[00:31:54] right? And so I had this sort of, even though I was a little kid, like I kind of removed, like,

[00:31:57] what is this? Like, why are, you know, eight-year-olds teasing me about the shoes I have?

[00:32:02] Like, none of us have any money of our own. You know, we’re just kids. And so I had this kind of

[00:32:06] naivete, like, that made me question it because I wasn’t as steeped as everybody else was. And I

[00:32:12] kind of, I think I’ve kind of kept that removed with me. And I just decided to be honest about

[00:32:16] it in this book and recapitulate it. And I think that’s what I’ve done. And I think that’s what I’ve

[00:32:17] rather painful memories that are hopefully funny. That’s the goal.

[00:32:21] I mean, it is, it’s a big part of the book. The engine of capitalism runs on insecurity and the

[00:32:27] need to define and measure ourselves through the things we own rather than the relationships

[00:32:32] that make up our lives. And while that’s very good for business, it is terrible for the human

[00:32:38] soul, if I can be permitted to use that word. And there was a quote in the book from,

[00:32:43] I guess it was some rando corporate executive in like 1950,

[00:32:47] or something like that. And he says, and I assume it has to be he. Now I’m quoting,

[00:32:52] it’s our job to make women unhappy with what they have. We must make them so unhappy that

[00:32:58] their husbands can find no happiness or peace in their excessive savings. It’s like, yeah,

[00:33:05] I mean, it’s just, boy, there’s a lot going on there.

[00:33:07] When also, you know, it’s so telling that that’s the 50s, which is when that quote is from,

[00:33:11] because what husband has excessive savings anymore now, right? Like, that’s all been sucked dry. But

[00:33:15] I mean, that’s, I think that was probably from The Wastemakers, a book.

[00:33:20] Yes.

[00:33:21] Yes. In the 50s, there was a kind of cultural turn and people started saying like, wow,

[00:33:26] we’re being sold all of this gadgetry and all this stuff that we don’t need. And, you know,

[00:33:31] it isn’t authentic, right? And I think we need to rekindle some of that indignation,

[00:33:36] because every dollar we spend on advertising is a dollar we’re not spending on things that

[00:33:41] really matter. We’re not spending on public services. We’re not,

[00:33:45] we’re not spending on a just transition. We’re not spending on advancing solar and

[00:33:51] renewable technology, right? We’re spending it instead on feeding this beast. You put it

[00:33:57] really beautifully, actually. I was like, I wish I had your phrase, but there’s something about

[00:34:02] what it is. We’re kind of sold this stuff as surrogates. Like, it’s nice to have stuff.

[00:34:06] I have a lot of stuff, but we’re also sold things as surrogates for sources of security that

[00:34:13] actually can’t be commodified. Community,

[00:34:15] connection with other people, meaning rest, like just the ability to get enough sleep,

[00:34:23] respect, dignity, all of these things. And it’s like, well, what do we really

[00:34:27] need? And how do we make those more central pillars of our society’s conception of what

[00:34:33] a secure life is?

[00:34:44] Astro and I have both written,

[00:34:45] books about democracy. Coming up after the break, we’ll discuss what’s working

[00:34:49] and what we wish we could change.

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[00:37:45] So I, I see you as a champion of democracy and I’d like to believe that I am as well, but sometimes I really struggle with that gap between the ideal and the reality.

[00:38:01] And there are moments where some of the great skeptics of democracy, like going back to the Greeks, Plato, or someone more contemporary like a Walter Lippmann, and those critiques give me a real pause.

[00:38:13] Even though I still very much believe democracy.

[00:38:15] Democracy is the best form of political life for lots of reasons.

[00:38:18] And we both obviously support democracy and want to see it flourish.

[00:38:22] But I guess I kind of want to know what gives you the most pause when you think about the challenges to achieving democracy and really making it work because it is kind of a fucking mess, isn’t it?

[00:38:32] Beautiful, but it’s a mess.

[00:38:33] Oh, it’s a total mess.

[00:38:34] I mean, I do not want to give the impression that I’m not having pauses left, right, and center.

[00:38:41] In a sense, I think I’m pretty honest about this in my book on democracy, too.

[00:38:45] That I kind of talked myself into the concept.

[00:38:47] I was actually ready to throw the idea out, right?

[00:38:50] Because it’s so corrupt.

[00:38:52] I mean, part of this is the problem of language.

[00:38:54] It’s so hard to pin something down and make it pure, right?

[00:38:57] You come up with a word, well, nothing’s there to prevent your enemies from using it and co-opting it and distorting it.

[00:39:03] So the language is always going to be messy.

[00:39:05] The practice is always going to be messier.

[00:39:08] The thing is, for all the evidence that human beings are really contemptuous creatures, there’s lots of evidence to the contrary.

[00:39:15] And there’s just so much evidence of collaboration, of care, of creativity every day.

[00:39:20] And so much of it, you know, we take for granted.

[00:39:22] I do sort of believe that we’re hardwired to sort of focus on the negative and remember negative things.

[00:39:28] And maybe it’s an evolutionary trait, right, to keep us safe.

[00:39:31] But there’s so much good that happens all the time.

[00:39:34] So I think, well, why not create the conditions that build on that?

[00:39:38] And on a very pragmatic level, I just believe that power sharing is a kind of safety measure, right?

[00:39:43] So, you know, there’s the fair.

[00:39:45] Famous German sociologist Robert Mischel, he has the idea of the iron law of our oligarchy,

[00:39:49] which is that in any institution, there’s a kind of oligarchic tendency.

[00:39:54] And he was studying the Socialist Party in Germany.

[00:39:57] And so my question is like, well, how do we guard against that?

[00:40:01] And you do it by sharing power, but creating systems that do allow for some kind of renewal and accountability of leadership.

[00:40:09] And I think these are just, these are honestly challenges we haven’t been wrestling with for that long.

[00:40:14] We haven’t had that much time to discuss.

[00:40:15] Try them.

[00:40:15] I mean, look at the United States.

[00:40:17] We ended Jim Crow in the 60s.

[00:40:19] Second wave feminism didn’t happen until the 70s.

[00:40:22] I mean, we’re pretty new at what we as late capitalist individuals consider democracy.

[00:40:29] We’re pretty new at it.

[00:40:30] And so I’d like to keep trying to give it a shot because the alternatives, I’m pretty convinced, are worse.

[00:40:36] This is not to say democracy has no problems.

[00:40:38] And they’re more boring.

[00:40:40] There’s just like less that’s interesting about the idea of a dictatorship or a technology.

[00:40:45] I think one of the biggest challenges for our democracy today is really the lack of avenues for meaningful participation.

[00:41:00] I mean, for all kinds of reasons, a great deal of the population has been reduced to just passive spectators.

[00:41:08] And this is related to the problem of atomization.

[00:41:11] I mean, all these forces we’re talking about have pushed us.

[00:41:15] In the direction of isolation, in the direction of hyper-individualism, and as you know as well as anyone, an atomized population has already surrendered.

[00:41:27] It’s only real political power, which is collective action.

[00:41:31] How do we overcome all of that?

[00:41:35] I mean, you know, there’s no button for the revolution.

[00:41:39] There’s no fixed democracy button.

[00:41:41] And it really is slow work.

[00:41:43] I mean, the phrase that always comes to mind.

[00:41:44] I’m very inspired.

[00:41:45] I’m inspired by Jane McAlevey, who’s a labor organizer and a great writer who’s written a lot on democracy.

[00:41:50] You know, in one of her books, it’s just called No Shortcuts.

[00:41:52] There’s really, there are no shortcuts to building power.

[00:41:54] And we have to reweave those civic associations, those mediating institutions that can help build the consciousness, but also the strategy, the political power for us to start reclaiming government and making it truly public.

[00:42:11] Public in the sense of accountable to the demos, to the people.

[00:42:14] And in What Is Democracy, which is the film that goes with the book, you know, I did what are called street or interviews where I just went out on the street and I said, what’s democracy to you?

[00:42:23] And I was shocked by how many people could not define it in its most basic terms.

[00:42:28] Like, it’s government by the people.

[00:42:30] It’s when you vote for elected officials, which is a very diminished conception of it.

[00:42:35] But nevertheless, and some people were like, I don’t know.

[00:42:37] I mean, one young woman even said, is that where people tell you what to do?

[00:42:41] This was a young woman who had gone to college.

[00:42:44] Tiffany, I came to was, that’s because these people actually, of course, they don’t know what democracy is because we don’t do it.

[00:42:48] We’re not invited to do it in our society.

[00:42:50] We are not invited to do it at work.

[00:42:51] We’re not invited to do it at school.

[00:42:53] And so those of us who care about it have to start building organizations and forms of collectivity that can sustain it, which is ultimately, you know, why I am committed to building the debt collective.

[00:43:04] That’s my small way of contributing to that project.

[00:43:06] And I think part of what can inspire us is just recognizing why those associations don’t exist.

[00:43:12] And it goes back to that neoliberal revolution.

[00:43:14] You know, the attack on labor unions, the fostering of an attitude of individualism, you know, I’m out for me alone.

[00:43:21] And that’s because the idea that people would come together and exercise democratic power has always been and remains an incredibly threatening idea to a certain class of people.

[00:43:32] I hate doing the book publisher thing where I ask you, what’s the big magical silver bullet solution to fix all of our problems?

[00:43:39] But you are an activist and an organizer and someone who’s on the ground, as I would say.

[00:43:44] So of all the things you’re working on and advocating for now, what feels most urgent?

[00:43:51] I mean, is it climate?

[00:43:52] Is it the debt fight?

[00:43:53] Is it labor rights?

[00:43:55] Is it just all of it?

[00:43:57] I mean, I don’t know.

[00:43:59] I’m just curious how you think about that.

[00:44:01] Or do you even think about it in those terms?

[00:44:02] Do you just get up and just do what’s in front of you and then on to the next thing?

[00:44:06] I mean, I think all of those fights are really interconnected.

[00:44:09] So for me, a lot of our democratic politics.

[00:44:14] The problems, the lack of welfare supports, the lack of climate regulation, the lack of accessible health care, all of these things stem from the fact that corporate interests and the very wealthy have captured and corrupted our government.

[00:44:28] Corruption is totally legal in the American halls of power.

[00:44:34] You know, and so that’s why I sort of I’m like, no matter what we care about, we’ve got to have a critique of the political economy here.

[00:44:38] Right. We have to get that kind of concentration of wealth under control.

[00:44:43] And.

[00:44:44] And you do that, you know, you make government less corrupted.

[00:44:47] Well, then you’re going to get better climate policy.

[00:44:48] You’re going to get better financial policy.

[00:44:50] You’re going to get more regulations, all these things.

[00:44:52] But that’s just too meta for actually doing this, taking that leap into organizing.

[00:44:57] And that’s why I think we all have to be like, well, where is it where I am?

[00:45:01] What can I do is a question I often get.

[00:45:03] And my answer is always it’s not about what you can do.

[00:45:06] It’s how you can join with others.

[00:45:09] So don’t think of yourself as just a lone individual exercising your voice.

[00:45:14] That’s important, you know, but find something where you can start building that power with other individuals.

[00:45:21] You know, you might live in a community where there’s opportunities to do electoral reform or where actually what you should do is start organizing a union at your workplace or trying to reform the union that you have at your workplace, because that’s another terrain of struggle.

[00:45:35] You know, actually democratizing your union.

[00:45:37] All of these fights are interconnected.

[00:45:39] They all really matter.

[00:45:40] But I think I just always want also people to keep that economic.

[00:45:43] Critique front and center like, you know, it is about the money and who has it and who doesn’t.

[00:45:52] People on the left tend to make a strategic mistake in allowing freedom and security to become separable in our political discourse because those things are actually very much related.

[00:46:05] Yes.

[00:46:05] You know, you’re making me want to look up the name of Marco Rubio has a new book.

[00:46:10] Oh, boy.

[00:46:11] Decades of decadence.

[00:46:12] Decades of decadence.

[00:46:13] Oh, God.

[00:46:13] And it’s his critique of neoliberal capitalism.

[00:46:18] You know, he’s standing up for the working class against the bosses and against the unions, of course.

[00:46:22] But security is in the subtitle.

[00:46:25] And, you know, it is true that the right speaks in the language of freedom, which I think the left really needs to reclaim.

[00:46:32] You know, and they also are more inclined to use the word security as well.

[00:46:35] And I would say that you need a baseline of material security to be truly free.

[00:46:40] Right.

[00:46:40] I mean, this is an FDRism, right?

[00:46:42] Right.

[00:46:42] Right.

[00:46:42] Right.

[00:46:42] Right.

[00:46:42] Right.

[00:46:42] Right.

[00:46:42] Right.

[00:46:42] Right.

[00:46:42] Right.

[00:46:42] Right.

[00:46:42] Right.

[00:46:42] Right.

[00:46:43] Right.

[00:46:43] Right.

[00:46:43] Right.

[00:46:44] Right.

[00:46:44] Right.

[00:46:44] Right.

[00:46:44] Right.

[00:46:45] Right.

[00:46:45] Right.

[00:46:45] And so I do think that we need to reclaim those concepts because the problem is when the left abandons certain ideas or when liberalism abandons certain ideas or doesn’t defend them robustly in a real way, the right picks them up and then offers these sort of twisted versions of them.

[00:47:01] Right.

[00:47:01] So then you get a Marco Rubio pretending that he’s actually like salt of the earth guy who’s going to make workers lives better.

[00:47:08] And he’s got also dog whistles in there.

[00:47:10] Right.

[00:47:10] So when he’s saying about the working class, he’s only talking about a subset of white men.

[00:47:13] and trying to actually do a divide and conquer kind of strategy there.

[00:47:17] So to me, a lot of my work, another theme of my work is reclaiming words.

[00:47:22] It’s like democracy.

[00:47:23] No, let’s not let that be a word that only George W. Bush can use as he occupies our

[00:47:28] rack.

[00:47:29] Or let’s take the word security, which has some negative connotations and try to imagine

[00:47:33] what a really progressive, nurturing version of it is.

[00:47:37] So this is definitely part of that endeavor.

[00:47:40] We may have reached some kind of tipping point.

[00:47:41] I mean, I recorded a conversation with Saurabh Amari.

[00:47:44] I’m not sure if you’re familiar with him.

[00:47:45] I mean, he’s kind of post-liberal conservative and very much on the other side of the cultural

[00:47:52] battle, I would say.

[00:47:53] But he has a new book, which is very, I mean, he calls himself a pro-life new dealer.

[00:48:00] It’s interesting.

[00:48:00] It’s the first work from a conservative I’ve read recently that actually does seriously

[00:48:04] take the concerns of the working and the middle class seriously.

[00:48:09] And to the extent that that’s…

[00:48:11] Indicative of some kind of sea change or whatever it’s going to look like on the other

[00:48:15] side of this scrambling of the political fault lines that’s happened in the last five, six,

[00:48:19] seven, eight years or so.

[00:48:21] I take some encouragement from that.

[00:48:23] Yeah.

[00:48:23] I mean, I’ve never heard of him, but certainly there’s, you know, a conversation happening

[00:48:27] in Washington among Republicans and Democrats where sort of both sides are using neoliberalism

[00:48:33] as a bad word.

[00:48:33] Both sides are talking about how we need to move beyond the quote unquote Washington

[00:48:37] consensus, which is essentially, you know, the neoliberal consensus.

[00:48:41] That gained ground in the late 70s through the 80s and to the 90s, very much, you know,

[00:48:46] cemented during the Clinton presidency.

[00:48:49] But, you know, I don’t trust those people.

[00:48:51] And that’s why I don’t trust them at all.

[00:48:53] That’s also, you know, audience, do not trust them.

[00:48:56] We need to build grassroots power that can give these words real meaning.

[00:49:01] This moment we’re in, right, of a kind of, I don’t know if it’s quite a realignment,

[00:49:05] but of a questioning of that consensus is an opportunity for people who mean it, who

[00:49:10] actually want to see.

[00:49:11] It’s a systemic change to step in and fill the void and shape the discourse and shape

[00:49:15] ideally more than the discourse, but actually shape the policy.

[00:49:18] It’s not going to happen spontaneously.

[00:49:20] It’s only going to happen if we are organized and if we have another, you know, and we have

[00:49:24] to know what we’re fighting for, which is, oh, actually, this is what security is.

[00:49:27] This is what security for working people is.

[00:49:30] It’s not what you’re offering.

[00:49:31] You know, it’s not a working class that’s actually divided and therefore already conquered.

[00:49:36] You know, it’s true solidarity and true recognition of our shared vulnerability and our need for

[00:49:41] a very different world.

[00:49:41] It’s a very different kind of social paradigm.

[00:49:43] I love that quote in the book from Eleanor Ostrom, that there are no panaceas, but there

[00:49:48] are possibilities.

[00:49:49] I think it’s a beautiful expression.

[00:49:51] Yeah, and it goes back to that spirit of experimentation, right, of no guarantees and leaps of faith,

[00:49:56] you know, and it’s fine.

[00:49:57] It’s fine that there’s no recipes written out for us that we just have to follow like

[00:50:01] little robots, because there is some fun and intellectual pleasure in figuring this stuff

[00:50:06] out together.

[00:50:07] And, you know, I think that’s what keeps me in the political work day after day.

[00:50:11] Even though it’s really distressing and we’re in the midst of a real backlash and in a way

[00:50:16] in a period of political disappointment.

[00:50:17] And here I’m referring to the fact that the Supreme Court struck down student debt relief

[00:50:21] for 40 million borrowers.

[00:50:22] But nevertheless, it’s like doing things with other people.

[00:50:26] And so if nothing else, there’s meaning in that.

[00:50:29] And that is kind of what keeps me going.

[00:50:31] Yeah, it’s very Sisyphean.

[00:50:32] But, you know, as Camus says, we must imagine Sisyphus happy, because if not, we’re fucked.

[00:50:38] No, I was like, right.

[00:50:40] He’s just like, I love nothing.

[00:50:41] More than pushing this rock.

[00:50:42] It’s so great.

[00:50:43] Have you pushed a rock?

[00:50:44] It’s like, what else would you want to do?

[00:50:47] It’s great for your hamstrings and core strength.

[00:50:50] Well, look, I mean, we can end on another, I think, fitting quote in the book from the

[00:50:55] late, great David Graeber.

[00:50:58] He’s a very important thinker and a real loss.

[00:51:00] He said the ultimate hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make and could

[00:51:04] just as easily make differently.

[00:51:07] I hope to see a better world.

[00:51:08] And I’m not sure what I believe is really possible.

[00:51:11] But again,

[00:51:11] I have immense respect for you and your commitment to living your ideals.

[00:51:18] Oh, well, I appreciate that.

[00:51:19] And yeah, kudos to David, who actually was the person who roped me into Occupy Wall Street

[00:51:24] and actually kind of put the band together that began the Debt Collective.

[00:51:29] You know, what he says is ultimately true.

[00:51:31] I mean, if you just, all we have to do is cast a backward glance, right?

[00:51:35] I’m sitting here as a woman, writing a book, talking on a podcast, you know, to somebody

[00:51:40] a couple of centuries ago, that would have been unimaginable.

[00:51:43] So the world is changing.

[00:51:44] Change is inevitable.

[00:51:46] And we can influence it, I think, you know, for good or for ill.

[00:51:49] And the other thing David pointed out, which echoes a point I made earlier, is just, you

[00:51:53] know, he said he was the one who actually, I think, alerted me to these currents of what

[00:51:58] he called everyday communism, right?

[00:52:00] Of just helping each other and being kind and all of this collaboration that we actually

[00:52:06] engage in day after day.

[00:52:08] And, you know, David, you know, I think you can say that.

[00:52:10] His project was like, well, let’s just make that less subterranean and bring that up and

[00:52:15] make it a more central feature of our social life.

[00:52:18] And so, yeah, we’re continuing that work.

[00:52:20] And it means a lot to me that you’re cheering us on.

[00:52:23] And thanks for having me on the show.

[00:52:25] Once again, the book is called The Age of Insecurity.

[00:52:27] Check it out, people.

[00:52:29] Astra, it was a pleasure.

[00:52:30] Thank you.

[00:52:31] Thanks so much.

[00:52:31] I really appreciate you doing this.

[00:52:40] Thank you.

[00:53:10] And remember, new episodes of The Gray Area now drop on Mondays.

[00:53:15] Listen and subscribe.