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Kamal, welcome to the podcast. 
Thank you so much. 

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Nice to see you. 
So you've got a very interesting

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voice on X and a voice on Sub 
Stack. 

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And I think we're both sort of, 
I don't know, politically 

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idiosyncratic kind of people who
like to sort of see things from 

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a distance. 
And we've carried on discussion 

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over the last few years and so 
on and so forth. 

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Do you want to kind of introduce
yourself for the audience, for 

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those people don't know you're 
camillekazani.subsec.com. 

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I think you're go ahead. 
Yeah. 

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So thank you so much for 
introduction. 

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My name is Camille Gallef and 
I'm writing a pen name, Camille 

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Kazani. 
So OK. 

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Great. 55. 
I didn't know whether you wanted

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to say what your pen name was, 
but go ahead. 

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Yeah. 
Yeah, so our region lamp from 

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Russia, I'm a cousin taught her.
So that is why where my nickname

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is coming from, and I'm 
primarily interested on this in 

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the social institutions and how 
they work in their dynamics. 

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And at this point, my primary 
focus of interest is revolution.

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So basically when transformative
social change happens, how and 

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why? 
And I find it really interesting

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and promising partially because 
in modern discourse, revolution 

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and coup, they have a sort of 
like theological or religious 

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meaning, a sort of like miracle 
just in social sphere. 

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So what I find interesting is 
and promising is just trying to 

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parse it into a sort of like 
more mechanic sequence of events

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just to see like how this 
happened in a real time. 

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And that is what I'm primarily 
interested in right now. 

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OK, got it. 
And so The thing is you 

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mentioned you're, you know, you 
have a Tatar background or Tatar

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background. 
Is it Tatar or Tatar or should I

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pronounce it OK? 
So I find that interesting and 

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helpful because basically, you 
know, for example, for when I'm,

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when I'm, when I'm understanding
China, I will try to read things

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from a Chinese nationalist 
perspective or Chinese Communist

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perspective, but also from a 
Chinese liberal perspective. 

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And then I could kind of 
triangulate and figure out, you 

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know, like, like views from 
that. 

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And so I like reading your views
and I kind of, you know, can, 

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can contrast that from the 
Russian nationalist perspective 

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of the Estonian perspective. 
And it's helpful because I think

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then you can sort of triangulate
and, and figure things out. 

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And there are a few of your 
posts over the years I found 

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insightful. 
And so one that you did recently

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was a very good one where you 
basically said something like 

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people think that what a 
revolution means is everybody's 

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free. 
And and so that's how it's 

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always promised. 
But the French Revolution, the 

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Russian Revolution were followed
by extreme regimentation and a 

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market loss of freedom, right? 
And maybe you can talk about 

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that. 
Yes, I think that is indeed 

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somewhat contributive and kind 
of may sound as a sort of heresy

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to most people. 
But I think it is pretty obvious

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because if we look at the 
countries where some sort of 

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like great fundamental 
revolutions happened that really

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shook the political order from 
the upside down, that could be 

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Russia in 1917 or it could be 
France in 1789, or some could 

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even say it's England in 1642. 
We would see the pattern. 

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And the pattern is in these 
countries we have a capital, 

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which is clearly a capital and 
very pronounced. 

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It's the largest city in the 
country and basically everyone 

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hits in the base street. 
So basically one. 

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And the that is the first 
pattern we see is that 

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revolution really happened only 
in monocentric countries. 

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So usually what we see in 
countries like the US and 19th 

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century. 
There has to be, there has to be

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a London, a Moscow or a Paris 
where there's like a clear 

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capital, OK. 
And in the US in eight in 1860s,

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there was nothing like that. 
I would even say that in China 

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in the early 20th century, one 
reason why Russian Revolution, 

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it basically happened in a blink
of an eye. 

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And in China there was long and 
bloody civil war for decades. 

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Is that China just did not have 
this pronounced capital in a 

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sense that Saint Petersburg. 
Well, it was preceded by the 

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Warlord era, right? 
So that almost was by definition

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like the Chinese Civil War was 
preceded by the Warlord era. 

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And. 
So that was almost like 

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definitionally decentralized. 
Right, well, one could say that 

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originally when they overthrew 
monarchy, like see higher 

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evolution that that was the 
beginning of it by basically 

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that is also interesting what 
happens. 

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So in China they overthrow 
monarchy and the power just 

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breaks down and you immediately 
have lots of regiments and 

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statelets. 
So it's not the like someone 

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else can see this power. 
And my understanding is that 

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revolution is something very 
different. 

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That is what happened in France 
or in Russia. 

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It's where there's a prebuilt 
omnipotence. 

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It falls into other hands. 
But for that you need to have it

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in the first place. 
Yeah. 

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So I mean a a better term than 
for revolution is really perhaps

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from the corporate world, 
hostile takeover. 

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I think I think that is a not 
bad. 

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I think that is not bad framing.
I am really enjoyed. 

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Because the hot set, yeah, go 
ahead. 

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You can use that if you want if 
you find that good. 

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Yeah, no, I think it's really a 
great comparison. 

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I'm now really enjoying reading 
Tuckerville. 

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So he's primarily known in Vago 
Phone world as the author of 

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Democracy in America. 
Democracy in America. 

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The one wrote on American 
political institutions. 

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Right, but what else has he 
done? 

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Actually, I don't know. 
Yeah, he wrote on his home 

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country, on French Revolution. 
It's pretty interesting because 

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he originally did not intend to.
He wanted to write on Napoleon, 

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but as it often happens, so he 
tried to. 

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When you are writing about 
Napoleon and his career, you 

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kind of have to dive into the 
revolution. 

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Yeah, when you're diving into 
the revolution, you become like 

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interested in how it happened in
the 1st place. 

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So it's interesting because he 
never really finished his book 

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on Napoleon, but he finished a 
great and interesting volume 1 

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of his future intended multi 
volume history that was 

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basically mostly on Louisa 
Forteins on the Sun Kings and he

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is administrative reforms. 
So basically it's a great point 

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of Techville. 
What he was writing about is 

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that really it was the kings of 
France who did all the 

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preparatory groundwork for the 
revolution. 

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Sort of like we are arguably 
for. 

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Yeah. 
So. 

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So why? 
In what sense did they do the 

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preparatory groundwork in the 
classical sense of, Oh my God, 

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they impoverish everybody? 
Or in some other sense. 

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I think it's more interesting 
than that. 

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So basically what is 1 of 
original Taquila's ideas? 

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So basically usually when we 
talk about revolution, we kinda 

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put it into a position to the 
old regime. 

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So there was this unsure regime,
kinda monarchist regime, then 

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Kaboom and then Republic takes 
its place. 

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The Queen is suggesting 
something more interesting. 

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So if before the Republic there 
was ancient regime, then the old

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regime, then what was before the
old regime? 

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Because we don't really think 
that in that time and Arctic 

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period, that's like from Middle 
Ages, from something like 1800s 

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to their almost leader of steam,
that France was governed exactly

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the same way. 
It's just impressible. 

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So he's saying that when we see 
old regime, unchanged regime, we

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usually mean absolute monarchy. 
I'm the king, I decide 

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everything. 
But it's not how it used to be 

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in the Middle Ages. 
So before the absolute monarchy,

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before the extreme 
centralization of power, that 

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really happened only very early,
late in history, there used to 

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be a very different medieval 
order. 

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So absolute monarchy, it build 
itself upon the medieval order 

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and its ruins. 
So how did it look like? 

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So how was France governed? 
And like many Western European 

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countries governed in fact 
before the absolute monarchy, In

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Tocqueville's mind, it's he 
defines it as aristocracy with 

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elements of democracy. 
So this may sound somewhat like 

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bizarre and weird and logically 
contradictory, but that is 

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primarily because the medieval 
order was indeed contradictory. 

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So first of all, over most of 
country, of course the ultimate 

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power belongs to nobles. 
So kind of noble land owners, 

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aristocrats of high pedigree who
control the land, who control 

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peasants and who basically 
execute all the power on the 

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ground, police, judicial 
administration, politics, 

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military, it all really belongs 
to the nobles. 

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So even even theory France is 
governed by the king in practice

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in far off provinces and like 
far away from the royal power. 

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You will not be real to do. 
You will not be ready to do 

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anything against the will of the
local aristocrats who really 

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hold all the power in the 
ground. 

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So they are like small gods in 
their provinces. 

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And that is 1. 
The most characteristic element 

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of medieval order that basically
all of us kind of know. 

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And we call it feudalism, but it
was not limited to feudalism. 

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It was pretty interesting. 
So a part of countryside where 

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mostly the ultimate power 
belonged to nobles. 

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We had cities, we had towns. 
Some of these towns had 

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overlords like maybe bishops or 
Dukes, but many of them and 

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maybe actually most of them were
republics. 

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That is the that is quite 
interesting. 

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And then again, maybe, maybe it 
sounds and unusual and 

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unexpected for in reference to. 
Republics. 

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In what sense of the term? 
Like this as you mean the sense?

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I think the. 
Not the modern. 

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Sense, the best way to frame it 
is compared to with their 

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police, with the city state of 
antiquity, because when we think

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of city states, we usually think
of Sparta, of Korean force. 

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I don't know of ancient Rome of 
car figure, but in reality in 

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Middle Ages cities and towns in 
Western Europe they functioned 

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very often in somewhat 
similarish manner. 

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So while the power of the king 
exists in terms of everyday 

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governance, it is more 
theoretical and in practice. 

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In practice cities and towns 
they had great degree of 

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internal autonomy. 
How they're governed, well 

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that's a different question. 
So some of them are more 

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oligarchic. 
So in some basically local 

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governments is controlled by 
rich merchants, in others it's 

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more democratic with much 
greater saying of like working 

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classes or urban classes. 
But basically everywhere it's 

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some sort of electoral 
democracy, but not quite in 

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middles in modern sense. 
When their vote and when their 

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opinion of different classes and
different guiles, different 

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corporations, it weighs 
differently. 

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And so, you know, this is 
actually similar in some ways. 

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You know, the Chinese concept of
the mountains are high in the 

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emperor's far away, that the 
king would have formal 

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authority, but the technology of
the time limited the extent to 

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which he could monitor all of 
these villages and towns and so 

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and so forth. 
So sort of an obligate sense in 

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which power was decentralized 
because he couldn't monitor 

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everything. 
He couldn't enforce everywhere. 

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He didn't have cameras 
everywhere or communication, you

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know, telephones or whatever 
everywhere. 

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So many of these things sort of 
had to develop their own 

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governance, and maybe the king 
could overrule it with his 

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Knights or what have you. 
But in practice, a lot of 

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decisions had to be made and 
were made locally. 

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Is that roughly correct? 
I think, I think to a greater 

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degree I agree with you. 
So basically indeed. 

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And that is one difference. 
For example, the power of Baron,

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it was usually much, much more 
real. 

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So if a city is governed by 
account, it is really governed 

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by account. 
But if it is governed by a king,

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it usually means it is not 
really gone by anyone. 

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00:11:52,080 --> 00:11:53,960
He's far away, right? 
But that's. 

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Interesting. 
So a federal, it's kind of like 

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you're in the concept of a union
territory in India, for example,

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there's some territories that 
are directly governed by the 

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federal government and others 
that have state governments and 

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00:12:05,360 --> 00:12:08,000
local governments. 
And so interestingly, the one 

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that's quote, directly governed 
by the king is in your view, the

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one that's not governed because 
king doesn't have time to govern

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00:12:13,600 --> 00:12:17,600
it. 
But the other ones covered by a 

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counter Baron are actually 
governed because that Baron or 

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00:12:20,200 --> 00:12:22,240
count has nothing else to do, 
right? 

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00:12:22,240 --> 00:12:25,640
So it's roughly like almost the 
number of people that fold in to

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00:12:25,640 --> 00:12:27,760
the person. 
Exactly correct. 

231
00:12:27,760 --> 00:12:31,240
This is one way to put it, but 
it's not only about the lack of 

232
00:12:31,240 --> 00:12:33,160
capacity and capacity of 
enforcement. 

233
00:12:33,160 --> 00:12:37,080
OK, what else is it? 
It's also about constitution, 

234
00:12:37,640 --> 00:12:41,240
about legal mechanisms. 
So basically all of these towns,

235
00:12:41,240 --> 00:12:43,800
they have their local laws, they
have their own charters. 

236
00:12:44,200 --> 00:12:47,560
So there is this bizarre legal 
world which is not really 

237
00:12:47,560 --> 00:12:50,960
uniformed yet. 
So basically some territories, 

238
00:12:50,960 --> 00:12:53,320
they're governed more, 
especially in the South of 

239
00:12:53,320 --> 00:12:56,120
France, they're governed more 
according to Roman law, 

240
00:12:56,120 --> 00:12:58,880
according to the written law, 
especially in the north. 

241
00:12:59,400 --> 00:13:03,160
It's more like some kind of like
customary, more like Germanic 

242
00:13:03,160 --> 00:13:07,480
systems of legislation. 
So basically territories and 

243
00:13:07,480 --> 00:13:09,960
townships and villages that are 
located miles away. 

244
00:13:10,360 --> 00:13:12,880
They could have completely 
different systems of governance 

245
00:13:12,880 --> 00:13:18,720
and of law and of constitution 
that are not even like brought 

246
00:13:18,720 --> 00:13:20,360
to some kind of uniform standard
yet. 

247
00:13:20,560 --> 00:13:22,320
That will happen like many 
centuries later. 

248
00:13:24,040 --> 00:13:30,760
So and 3rd interesting 
institution and which is 

249
00:13:30,760 --> 00:13:32,840
especially important in the 
context of France. 

250
00:13:33,440 --> 00:13:36,560
It is of that of Western 
European countries. 

251
00:13:36,720 --> 00:13:40,040
France, it had an unusually 
important and unusually bloated 

252
00:13:40,040 --> 00:13:42,120
significance of legal 
profession. 

253
00:13:43,400 --> 00:13:48,920
So at some point, at some point 
Judith, and it is called local 

254
00:13:48,920 --> 00:13:51,440
parliaments because in England 
Parliament it was kind of 

255
00:13:52,120 --> 00:13:54,200
legislative, it was like kind of
kind of Congress. 

256
00:13:54,720 --> 00:13:57,120
And in France it referred to 
judicial bodies. 

257
00:13:58,200 --> 00:14:02,480
They usurped a great degree not 
only of judicial but also of 

258
00:14:02,480 --> 00:14:05,640
legislative authority. 
So how it was, and I'll just 

259
00:14:05,640 --> 00:14:10,680
give you an example because it 
shows it well, illustrate I 

260
00:14:10,680 --> 00:14:13,120
think, the bizarreness and 
weirdness of the old medieval 

261
00:14:13,120 --> 00:14:17,760
order. 
So for a royal decree to become 

262
00:14:17,760 --> 00:14:21,240
a law, it must be registered in 
Parliament of Paris, in it's 

263
00:14:21,240 --> 00:14:26,440
like judicial body of Paris. 
So Kim is sending order and it 

264
00:14:26,560 --> 00:14:30,600
often happens, it's completely 
normal that a parliament doesn't

265
00:14:30,600 --> 00:14:32,760
want to register it and gives it
objections. 

266
00:14:33,400 --> 00:14:37,000
We send another order, bless 
you, and the Parliament send its

267
00:14:37,000 --> 00:14:39,760
objections. 
And this kind of fight can go on

268
00:14:39,760 --> 00:14:42,520
and on and on and on with many 
objections by our parliament. 

269
00:14:43,640 --> 00:14:45,880
But finally, yeah, King can put 
a stopper to it. 

270
00:14:46,000 --> 00:14:48,440
If he comes personally to 
Parliament, he can just order 

271
00:14:48,440 --> 00:14:50,560
them through it and then it's 
the end of it. 

272
00:14:51,680 --> 00:14:54,760
But paradoxically enough, they 
can still give their 

273
00:14:54,760 --> 00:14:56,680
remonstrances and they can still
protest. 

274
00:14:57,000 --> 00:14:59,560
It's not they can do anything. 
No, it will be registered. 

275
00:15:00,240 --> 00:15:03,960
The royal will become the law 
but they can still protest and 

276
00:15:03,960 --> 00:15:06,600
say how it's like bad and 
illegal and everything and 

277
00:15:06,640 --> 00:15:10,880
unjust so while they could not. 
Practice. 

278
00:15:10,880 --> 00:15:14,000
What does that mean? 
It it, it gives him hesitation 

279
00:15:14,000 --> 00:15:17,160
because he knows that they're 
complying, but they're doing so 

280
00:15:17,600 --> 00:15:19,680
against their will. 
And so therefore their 

281
00:15:19,680 --> 00:15:23,960
compliance will be, you know, 
letter of the law rather than 

282
00:15:23,960 --> 00:15:26,400
spirit of the law, right? 
Because he's not going to get, 

283
00:15:26,880 --> 00:15:30,840
he, he, you know, whatever he's 
ordering, he may get what he 

284
00:15:30,840 --> 00:15:34,240
orders, but not beyond that. 
And it may be subtly sabotage. 

285
00:15:34,240 --> 00:15:37,240
Is that kind of the thinking as 
to why he'd want their full 

286
00:15:37,240 --> 00:15:38,920
consent without the 
remonstrance? 

287
00:15:39,600 --> 00:15:43,280
I think this is, I think this is
1 framing and there's a lot of 

288
00:15:43,280 --> 00:15:45,720
proof on that. 
And another part is that all of 

289
00:15:45,720 --> 00:15:49,320
the judicial bodies part of that
power was that they were simply 

290
00:15:49,320 --> 00:15:54,440
becoming 4 car of more general 
dissent, sometimes by Township 

291
00:15:54,440 --> 00:16:00,440
populaces, just by urban people 
and sometimes aristocracy, 

292
00:16:01,720 --> 00:16:04,680
because basically it was giving 
like other oppositional groups 

293
00:16:04,680 --> 00:16:08,200
and fractions some sort of kind 
centered group around. 

294
00:16:09,760 --> 00:16:13,240
So from the perspective of 
French market, I would say these

295
00:16:13,240 --> 00:16:16,240
three the three primarily 
challenges to their power. 

296
00:16:16,400 --> 00:16:22,280
SO3 primary internal security 
threats and starting from 

297
00:16:22,280 --> 00:16:25,920
somewhere like 16th century, but
especially under the sunken 

298
00:16:26,600 --> 00:16:30,000
under the Louis 14th, the 
monarchy basically breaks the 

299
00:16:30,000 --> 00:16:33,920
back of all three institutions, 
submitting them to its power. 

300
00:16:35,080 --> 00:16:43,360
But it is an interesting and I 
get somewhat bizarre process. 

301
00:16:44,040 --> 00:16:49,200
So what could the king do? 
So I have great nobles, I have 

302
00:16:52,720 --> 00:16:55,320
independent towns that are 
governed by their own elected 

303
00:16:55,320 --> 00:17:00,320
governments and that may have 
their own opinion on politics. 

304
00:17:00,360 --> 00:17:03,560
And three is judicial bodies. 
Like theoretically, 

305
00:17:03,560 --> 00:17:06,520
theoretically speaking, I could 
have abolished them, but it 

306
00:17:06,520 --> 00:17:09,000
would be some optimal. 
So basically, as Maccabella put 

307
00:17:09,440 --> 00:17:12,680
put it, there is nothing more 
dangerous than replacing the old

308
00:17:12,680 --> 00:17:14,839
order and the old habits with 
the new. 

309
00:17:15,160 --> 00:17:17,000
It's just probably not going to 
pass. 

310
00:17:17,800 --> 00:17:20,800
So they, and by they mean 
primarily the Sun King Louis 

311
00:17:20,800 --> 00:17:23,359
Fourteens did something more 
interesting than that. 

312
00:17:24,480 --> 00:17:27,640
So you have these traditional 
medieval constitution and 

313
00:17:27,640 --> 00:17:30,960
traditional medieval 
institutions of France that 

314
00:17:30,960 --> 00:17:35,080
govern the country till then and
you don't have all of them. 

315
00:17:35,200 --> 00:17:39,000
They keep their power, they keep
their prestige, they keep their 

316
00:17:39,000 --> 00:17:42,320
glory. 
But you are building apparel, 

317
00:17:42,320 --> 00:17:47,040
set of institutions, apparel 
government that that is not 

318
00:17:47,040 --> 00:17:50,400
rooted in any tradition, that is
not true, rooted in any customer

319
00:17:50,400 --> 00:17:54,080
law and depends upon your will 
only exclusively. 

320
00:17:54,720 --> 00:17:58,920
You build a peril government 
near the old one. 

321
00:17:59,600 --> 00:18:02,720
So let me give you an example. 
However, the French province was

322
00:18:02,720 --> 00:18:07,920
governed before. 
So here's the province it is 

323
00:18:08,040 --> 00:18:09,800
governed by, well, it's 
governor. 

324
00:18:10,640 --> 00:18:12,480
Governor is always a great 
noble. 

325
00:18:13,080 --> 00:18:15,720
He's some kind of Duke or count 
or Baron. 

326
00:18:16,840 --> 00:18:20,920
He is hugely governed, the same 
province where he grew up in, 

327
00:18:21,120 --> 00:18:24,320
where he holds his estates. 
He's connected by mainly 

328
00:18:24,320 --> 00:18:28,400
familial and other links with 
the local nobility. 

329
00:18:28,720 --> 00:18:32,440
And he just by the virtue of his
birth and with his family, he 

330
00:18:32,440 --> 00:18:34,480
commands great respect and 
loyalty among the local 

331
00:18:34,480 --> 00:18:38,360
population. 
And on top of that he gets an 

332
00:18:38,360 --> 00:18:41,000
official right to command by the
name of the king. 

333
00:18:42,200 --> 00:18:45,720
And realistically speaking, it 
just becomes it is too much. 

334
00:18:46,120 --> 00:18:48,040
It is too much because you're 
uncontrollable. 

335
00:18:49,200 --> 00:18:52,080
So imagine you are Duke, you 
have like a small private army 

336
00:18:52,080 --> 00:18:54,600
of yourself already and now you 
become a governor. 

337
00:18:55,400 --> 00:18:59,520
How to control you? 
So imagine there's some kind of 

338
00:18:59,520 --> 00:19:02,080
conflict between the king and 
the governor. 

339
00:19:02,920 --> 00:19:06,640
Whom will the popular support? 
Truth is that very, very often 

340
00:19:06,640 --> 00:19:10,080
they'll support the governor 
because he's he's already there 

341
00:19:10,080 --> 00:19:12,720
for the league and the locality 
of it. 

342
00:19:12,880 --> 00:19:14,800
Yes. 
And he's kind of rooted in all 

343
00:19:14,800 --> 00:19:18,480
this noble world and he probably
can like drag many of the nobles

344
00:19:18,480 --> 00:19:22,200
onto his side if he's alone. 
That is not a big problem. 

345
00:19:22,800 --> 00:19:24,360
King is more powerful than in a 
governor. 

346
00:19:24,840 --> 00:19:28,240
But imagine if he's not. 
Imagine if there is a group of 

347
00:19:28,240 --> 00:19:31,720
governors now, like 
theoretically, if they can 

348
00:19:31,720 --> 00:19:34,680
replace king like in fury, they 
can replace monarchy. 

349
00:19:35,440 --> 00:19:39,640
And that is indeed what could 
have happened in the early years

350
00:19:39,640 --> 00:19:43,000
of Louis Fourteens. 
Because when young Louis 

351
00:19:43,000 --> 00:19:46,960
Fourteens faced a coalition of 
nobles and it looked like they 

352
00:19:46,960 --> 00:19:48,240
could have potentially toppled 
him. 

353
00:19:48,800 --> 00:19:52,720
So basically he was a prisoner 
for a brief period of time. 

354
00:19:54,440 --> 00:19:58,000
So when he became adult and 
decided to do something with it,

355
00:19:59,400 --> 00:20:02,520
he did not release them of their
oaths, he did not display them. 

356
00:20:02,600 --> 00:20:04,840
So basically all this office 
continues, all these offices 

357
00:20:04,840 --> 00:20:07,280
continued. 
And usually it was still great 

358
00:20:07,280 --> 00:20:13,120
nobles who were ruling them, but
in peril to that he built a 

359
00:20:13,120 --> 00:20:17,320
separate hierarchy. 
So basically he was sending 

360
00:20:17,320 --> 00:20:20,080
their, he was sending their 
other guys, and these guys were 

361
00:20:20,080 --> 00:20:24,080
called intendants. 
So who are these intendants? 

362
00:20:24,760 --> 00:20:26,200
You have a royal consulate in 
Paris. 

363
00:20:27,040 --> 00:20:30,440
This royal council, it is never 
composed of noble of nobles, 

364
00:20:30,720 --> 00:20:33,720
never. 
It's always ignoble people of 

365
00:20:33,720 --> 00:20:37,520
common origin usually who have 
some roots in bureaucracy, in 

366
00:20:37,520 --> 00:20:41,680
the administrative profession. 
But they're never, they're rich,

367
00:20:41,760 --> 00:20:46,240
they never have an noble 
connections and they compose a 

368
00:20:46,240 --> 00:20:50,120
center of royal administration. 
So OK, so let me. 

369
00:20:50,200 --> 00:20:51,200
First of all, this is very 
helpful. 

370
00:20:51,200 --> 00:20:53,640
Let me let me ask you a few 
questions based on some of their

371
00:20:53,640 --> 00:20:55,000
just. 
This is actually very good 

372
00:20:55,000 --> 00:21:00,320
color. 
So the relevance of your post 

373
00:21:00,320 --> 00:21:03,480
the other day, just coming back 
to that post, the one on on like

374
00:21:03,480 --> 00:21:07,280
revolutions are actually more 
like my paraphrase hostile 

375
00:21:07,280 --> 00:21:10,680
takeovers. 
That actually a revolution which

376
00:21:10,680 --> 00:21:13,760
can be conceptualized as a 
hostile takeover that installs a

377
00:21:13,760 --> 00:21:19,320
new harsh order is actually the 
better outcome relative to the 

378
00:21:19,320 --> 00:21:21,680
multi polarity, which is really 
just anarchy. 

379
00:21:22,240 --> 00:21:24,920
Right? 
Like when no faction actually 

380
00:21:24,920 --> 00:21:29,880
has the power to impose a 
revolution, you get Warlord era,

381
00:21:29,880 --> 00:21:33,120
you get multipolarity, you get 
anarchy that's actually even 

382
00:21:33,120 --> 00:21:36,720
worse than a revolution that is.
One interesting way to put it, 

383
00:21:37,520 --> 00:21:39,880
you saw that this kind, I think 
you said something like that. 

384
00:21:39,880 --> 00:21:41,000
I've come to a similar 
conclusion. 

385
00:21:41,000 --> 00:21:44,880
Go ahead. 
That is an interesting idea and 

386
00:21:44,880 --> 00:21:49,240
I think there is like lots of 
truth in that, you know, and 

387
00:21:49,240 --> 00:21:52,240
that is indeed what our 
intuition kind of tells us. 

388
00:21:52,720 --> 00:21:55,920
So basically either some big 
boss, maybe good or bad boss. 

389
00:21:56,120 --> 00:21:59,360
It's kind of better than when 
there is like 100 bosses and 

390
00:21:59,360 --> 00:22:05,600
they're fighting each other. 
So and that kind of matches our 

391
00:22:05,600 --> 00:22:07,600
intuition. 
So there's for example, some 

392
00:22:07,600 --> 00:22:09,720
kind of great empire, let's say 
Roman Empire. 

393
00:22:09,800 --> 00:22:15,800
It breaks down into warlordism 
and and then in theory some 

394
00:22:15,800 --> 00:22:18,400
other empire can be rebuilt 
again from this warlordism. 

395
00:22:20,600 --> 00:22:22,840
I think it is partially true, 
because indeed probably 

396
00:22:22,840 --> 00:22:27,520
experiences of most humans, they
are wars at the times of 

397
00:22:27,520 --> 00:22:32,080
breakdown of empires at the 
times when their order breaks 

398
00:22:32,080 --> 00:22:37,200
down completely, then when wears
just just another warlord and he

399
00:22:37,200 --> 00:22:43,360
like kind assumes power. 
But but you could look at a 

400
00:22:43,360 --> 00:22:45,280
different way. 
You could look not from 

401
00:22:45,280 --> 00:22:48,080
individual human perspective, 
but for example from the 

402
00:22:48,080 --> 00:22:51,200
perspective of kind of long term
trends of history. 

403
00:22:51,920 --> 00:22:54,680
And then one could see that 
often it is the periods of 

404
00:22:54,680 --> 00:22:58,400
breakdown and often complete 
collapse not only of political 

405
00:22:58,400 --> 00:23:01,840
but also of economic, logistical
and cultural structures. 

406
00:23:02,240 --> 00:23:05,600
It is often the times of 
complete breakdown that become, 

407
00:23:08,360 --> 00:23:12,920
I'd say, highly notive and kind 
of give a sort of reset, a sort 

408
00:23:12,920 --> 00:23:16,120
of recharge just to the general 
flow of civilization. 

409
00:23:18,080 --> 00:23:20,120
Great example, European Middle 
Ages. 

410
00:23:20,920 --> 00:23:25,280
So although in fact the collapse
of Roman Empire probably 

411
00:23:25,280 --> 00:23:28,560
worsened conditions of I think 
almost everyone who lived who 

412
00:23:28,560 --> 00:23:31,440
lived there, I think that's 
quite likely true. 

413
00:23:32,600 --> 00:23:37,720
At the same time, I think that 
many of the innovations in 

414
00:23:37,720 --> 00:23:45,240
agriculture, in cavalry again 
then probably sometime later in 

415
00:23:45,240 --> 00:23:49,880
navigation that I think the old 
and sort of stable order was 

416
00:23:49,880 --> 00:23:52,400
kind of withholding, kind of 
freezing them on this level. 

417
00:23:54,720 --> 00:24:02,200
I think they could just blow 
blow up kind of have their 

418
00:24:02,200 --> 00:24:05,720
chance when the power and the 
existing like economic and 

419
00:24:05,720 --> 00:24:10,320
logistical structures breakdown.
Maybe, maybe, probably the 

420
00:24:10,320 --> 00:24:11,880
people of Bronze Age would kill 
me for that. 

421
00:24:12,080 --> 00:24:15,200
But I would even argue that the 
Bronze Age collapse, it played a

422
00:24:15,200 --> 00:24:18,560
similar role. 
There is this weird theory about

423
00:24:18,560 --> 00:24:27,640
the history of iron mining and 
kind of iron book that basically

424
00:24:27,960 --> 00:24:31,960
why people in the ancient 
Mediterranean switched to iron. 

425
00:24:32,200 --> 00:24:34,720
It's not because it was 
superior, actually probably for 

426
00:24:34,720 --> 00:24:40,120
quite a long time iron, it was 
inferior to the bronze, but 

427
00:24:40,240 --> 00:24:42,880
because the logistical structure
they broke down. 

428
00:24:43,480 --> 00:24:48,200
So kind, it all worked based on 
their very long and very 

429
00:24:48,200 --> 00:24:51,120
vulnerable supply chains. 
So you bring this team from 

430
00:24:51,120 --> 00:24:54,720
somewhere, from England, from 
Cornwall, and when nothing works

431
00:24:54,720 --> 00:24:57,840
anymore, then you have to work 
with whatever resources there 

432
00:24:58,520 --> 00:25:01,400
and people just switch to iron. 
I find this software 

433
00:25:01,400 --> 00:25:04,920
provocative. 
So very often these elements, so

434
00:25:05,000 --> 00:25:08,600
very often, these times of 
breakdown, they also become 

435
00:25:09,000 --> 00:25:12,840
times of innovation. 
You can kind of deviate from old

436
00:25:12,840 --> 00:25:15,360
patterns to the good or to the 
bad, right? 

437
00:25:15,640 --> 00:25:17,840
Exactly. 
Because the old order goes away 

438
00:25:18,320 --> 00:25:22,120
and everything that was 
restricting upward and downward 

439
00:25:22,120 --> 00:25:25,200
deviation goes away. 
And you do get a lot of things 

440
00:25:25,200 --> 00:25:27,880
that are worse off, but you also
get the upper deviation, which 

441
00:25:27,880 --> 00:25:29,360
is being constrained by the old 
system. 

442
00:25:31,040 --> 00:25:33,120
You know, on that point, by the 
way, I thought you had another 

443
00:25:33,160 --> 00:25:37,480
very insightful post recently. 
It was like the art of not 

444
00:25:37,480 --> 00:25:42,640
noticing things. 
And, you know, on the topic of 

445
00:25:42,640 --> 00:25:46,480
sort of who's in power versus 
not, you said the Reds or the 

446
00:25:46,480 --> 00:25:50,600
Republicans will notice that if 
somebody says the word 

447
00:25:50,600 --> 00:25:53,320
censorship, they're probably 
Republican, Republican 

448
00:25:53,320 --> 00:25:56,040
sympathetic. 
But Blues won't use that word. 

449
00:25:56,040 --> 00:25:59,600
And why is that? 
And the answer is because Blues 

450
00:25:59,600 --> 00:26:02,720
had been in power so long that 
they didn't call things by their

451
00:26:02,720 --> 00:26:05,280
name. 
And Reds were out of power and 

452
00:26:05,280 --> 00:26:07,000
used to having power used 
against them. 

453
00:26:07,400 --> 00:26:08,880
So they call things by their 
name. 

454
00:26:08,880 --> 00:26:11,960
And this is even before Trump. 
And in some ways, you know, is 

455
00:26:11,960 --> 00:26:14,800
Trump in power now? 
Kind of, you know, you know, 

456
00:26:14,800 --> 00:26:17,120
arguably much more so than he 
was certainly in the first term.

457
00:26:17,120 --> 00:26:22,120
But even still, habits die hard.
And I. 

458
00:26:22,120 --> 00:26:24,160
Thought there's a very good 
insight or very good way of 

459
00:26:24,160 --> 00:26:27,800
phrasing it that the ones in 
power basically are like, oh, 

460
00:26:27,800 --> 00:26:30,840
that's just the way things are. 
And the ones out of power a 

461
00:26:30,840 --> 00:26:34,840
sign, you know, they they they, 
they put a sharper label on 

462
00:26:34,840 --> 00:26:38,520
things on. 
Anyway, I wanted to just note 

463
00:26:38,520 --> 00:26:39,720
that I thought that was a very 
good post. 

464
00:26:39,720 --> 00:26:41,640
Maybe you have some thoughts on 
that I? 

465
00:26:41,640 --> 00:26:45,200
Think I think, yeah, that that 
is a sort of general pattern. 

466
00:26:45,480 --> 00:26:49,000
And actually I think that that 
of not noticing things and not 

467
00:26:49,000 --> 00:26:51,080
admitting that you have power, 
it's actually very good for 

468
00:26:51,080 --> 00:26:55,080
those in power. 
So when for example, like French

469
00:26:55,080 --> 00:26:59,320
kings, they in the mid 18th 
century say something like like 

470
00:26:59,320 --> 00:27:05,560
the state is me and all the laws
come from me in me alone, like 

471
00:27:05,640 --> 00:27:08,760
all the power and all the 
authorities, that is not very 

472
00:27:08,760 --> 00:27:11,960
smart. 
Like even if it's really true, 

473
00:27:11,960 --> 00:27:15,360
you shouldn't say that. 
And I'll give you an opposite 

474
00:27:15,360 --> 00:27:18,240
example. 
When I was reading on October 

475
00:27:18,240 --> 00:27:21,040
and Augustus, so kind of the 
person who is considered to be 

476
00:27:21,040 --> 00:27:27,680
the first emperor, he didn't 
really, he didn't really show 

477
00:27:27,680 --> 00:27:31,520
off. 
He didn't really show. 

478
00:27:31,600 --> 00:27:34,520
He didn't really demonstrate how
much power he has. 

479
00:27:35,320 --> 00:27:39,560
So he walked among, he walked 
around Rome in very simple 

480
00:27:39,560 --> 00:27:44,480
clothes, all assumed by his own,
like wife and daughters, with 

481
00:27:44,480 --> 00:27:50,800
very simple stick in very simple
shoes when in a theatre, just 

482
00:27:50,800 --> 00:27:54,600
some kind, some author. 
He deviated from the play, from 

483
00:27:54,600 --> 00:27:58,800
the script and just addressed 
Octavian, calling him a king 

484
00:27:59,440 --> 00:28:03,000
actor and rose and show. 
He show his furious and just in 

485
00:28:03,000 --> 00:28:08,760
indignation left the theater. 
So you should not he did not 

486
00:28:08,760 --> 00:28:13,680
allow even a thought that he 
aims to holds maniacal power, 

487
00:28:13,840 --> 00:28:15,400
even though in reality it was 
probably true. 

488
00:28:15,440 --> 00:28:17,960
And I think it's interesting. 
Because basically this is 

489
00:28:17,960 --> 00:28:22,080
something I think that. 
Perhaps the center? 

490
00:28:22,080 --> 00:28:26,880
Right is smarter on this and the
quote far right, because the far

491
00:28:26,880 --> 00:28:34,160
right is actually enamored with 
vibes and, you know, explicit 

492
00:28:34,160 --> 00:28:38,000
displays of power and all of 
that kind of stuff, right? 

493
00:28:38,840 --> 00:28:42,520
And, you know, once in a while 
maybe you do need an explicit 

494
00:28:42,520 --> 00:28:45,440
display of power, perhaps for a 
regime to stay in power. 

495
00:28:45,440 --> 00:28:49,360
But you definitely don't want to
be doing it all the time because

496
00:28:49,360 --> 00:28:51,960
if you do have to do it all the 
time, then you're maybe not in 

497
00:28:51,960 --> 00:28:56,000
power, you know, and because you
have to keep saying how powerful

498
00:28:56,000 --> 00:28:59,200
you are, blah, blah, blah, blah 
#1 and #2 is you give a target 

499
00:28:59,200 --> 00:29:03,560
to put on your back and. #3 so. 
There's a there's a sense also, 

500
00:29:03,560 --> 00:29:06,680
you know, encrypted, there's 
constant decentralization and 

501
00:29:06,680 --> 00:29:12,520
enlightened self-interest is in 
part splitting power so that 

502
00:29:12,680 --> 00:29:14,200
there isn't one person to 
target. 

503
00:29:14,720 --> 00:29:18,520
You know, of course, if you do 
that too much, then nobody can 

504
00:29:18,520 --> 00:29:21,120
make a decision, just a balance 
between the two. 

505
00:29:21,960 --> 00:29:26,880
But, but there is a balance and 
it's not simply that the optimal

506
00:29:26,920 --> 00:29:30,720
strategy is always, you know, if
there's only one person who can 

507
00:29:30,720 --> 00:29:33,520
make all decisions, well, 
there's no robustness. 

508
00:29:33,520 --> 00:29:34,760
You've got single point of 
failure. 

509
00:29:34,760 --> 00:29:36,760
You know, and you've mentioned 
this in the context of 

510
00:29:36,760 --> 00:29:38,160
succession and so on and so 
forth. 

511
00:29:38,400 --> 00:29:39,440
Maybe you have some thoughts on 
that. 

512
00:29:39,800 --> 00:29:43,000
I agree with you basically. 
And yes, it is pretty often 

513
00:29:43,360 --> 00:29:47,440
that, for example, in regimes 
that we now retrospectively see 

514
00:29:47,440 --> 00:29:51,440
as tyrannical or dysportic, they
very often had to either work 

515
00:29:51,440 --> 00:29:54,600
out some sort of internal 
constitution, some sort of 

516
00:29:54,600 --> 00:29:59,160
objective rules. 
So we kind rule by law or at 

517
00:29:59,160 --> 00:30:02,840
least pretend they have it. 
One remark, I have not written 

518
00:30:02,840 --> 00:30:04,960
about it yet, but I wanted some 
future point. 

519
00:30:06,320 --> 00:30:10,000
Stalin was never really 
accepting or showing within the 

520
00:30:10,000 --> 00:30:12,960
Soviet elite that it's all his 
personal wimo Caprice. 

521
00:30:13,400 --> 00:30:17,120
He was kind of avoiding this. 
So when he wanted to give a 

522
00:30:17,120 --> 00:30:19,600
decision, he wouldn't say, oh, 
it's my decision because I'm a 

523
00:30:19,600 --> 00:30:20,520
boss. 
You maybe. 

524
00:30:20,520 --> 00:30:22,160
No, no, no, no, he should never 
do that. 

525
00:30:22,760 --> 00:30:28,320
He would approach a bookshelf, 
take a volume of Lenin, find a 

526
00:30:28,320 --> 00:30:32,160
quote and say, let's look what 
Vladimir Lenin told us about 

527
00:30:32,160 --> 00:30:34,720
that. 
And kind of that was the 

528
00:30:34,720 --> 00:30:38,920
decision for the pretense was so
we have a constitution. 

529
00:30:39,360 --> 00:30:43,880
It is something like 50 volumes 
of Lenin's works, and we obey 

530
00:30:43,880 --> 00:30:47,840
them and we live by these rules.
And Stalin, who is Stalin? 

531
00:30:48,160 --> 00:30:50,440
He's not a God. 
He's more like a priest. 

532
00:30:50,440 --> 00:30:53,880
He's interpreter. 
He's kind of appealing to the 

533
00:30:53,880 --> 00:30:57,640
God and getting his opinion. 
Of course, there was some sort 

534
00:30:57,640 --> 00:31:01,560
of trickster in all of that 
because every Soviet student 

535
00:31:01,560 --> 00:31:05,080
knew that Lenin contradicted 
himself and contradicted all the

536
00:31:05,080 --> 00:31:07,320
time. 
So you could, like, justify 

537
00:31:07,320 --> 00:31:10,840
whatever decisions based on 
Lenin's quotes, but you have to 

538
00:31:10,840 --> 00:31:14,960
pretend there is some kind of 
formal procedure and you have to

539
00:31:14,960 --> 00:31:17,480
pretend there is some sort of 
source constitution or it 

540
00:31:17,480 --> 00:31:18,800
doesn't work. 
Interesting. 

541
00:31:18,800 --> 00:31:20,120
Yes. 
And I think, you know, what's 

542
00:31:20,120 --> 00:31:25,360
interesting about this, by the 
way, is one thing that was it's 

543
00:31:25,360 --> 00:31:29,160
always surprising for people 
who've studied the Soviets or 

544
00:31:29,160 --> 00:31:33,200
what have you is even when 
they're shooting and liquidating

545
00:31:33,200 --> 00:31:35,800
this and that person, even 
deporting whole ethnicities and 

546
00:31:35,800 --> 00:31:39,680
so on and so forth, they're 
really focused on the optics and

547
00:31:39,680 --> 00:31:42,680
the paperwork. 
Even when they're doing all. 

548
00:31:42,680 --> 00:31:46,760
This stuff, you know, they, they
really want to have some like 

549
00:31:47,320 --> 00:31:52,760
veneer of formalism around this.
And you know, eventually I sort 

550
00:31:52,760 --> 00:31:57,920
of realized that it's like a 
camouflage to a sneak, you know,

551
00:31:58,160 --> 00:32:02,080
they just have to have it. 
It's just part of how they 

552
00:32:02,080 --> 00:32:06,480
operate because, you know, if 
they're shooting somebody in a 

553
00:32:06,480 --> 00:32:12,040
room, but they write it up as 
if, oh, you know, he resisted so

554
00:32:12,040 --> 00:32:14,320
on and so forth. 
Nobody knows any different. 

555
00:32:14,320 --> 00:32:18,520
And then nobody can align 
against them on that, right? 

556
00:32:18,800 --> 00:32:21,600
So like the there's only a few 
people in the room who actually 

557
00:32:21,600 --> 00:32:25,600
saw that shooting. 
But the official report says, 

558
00:32:25,840 --> 00:32:29,320
you know, this guy resisted and,
you know, he committed an 

559
00:32:29,320 --> 00:32:31,600
offense against state security 
or something like that. 

560
00:32:32,280 --> 00:32:33,760
Same with the show trials, for 
example. 

561
00:32:33,760 --> 00:32:37,440
Now the issue is they can only 
lie to so many people at once. 

562
00:32:37,440 --> 00:32:39,360
And, you know, eventually the 
whole thing breaks down. 

563
00:32:39,360 --> 00:32:43,040
But just at a very fundamental 
level, they're very invested in 

564
00:32:43,040 --> 00:32:46,400
camouflage, of which one 
dimension is the dimension that 

565
00:32:46,400 --> 00:32:48,640
we just discussed, which served 
camouflaging, like who's making 

566
00:32:48,640 --> 00:32:52,000
decisions and so on, you see. 
I remember I was reading 

567
00:32:52,000 --> 00:32:55,480
interesting memoirs. 
It's a framed aristocrat who 

568
00:32:55,480 --> 00:32:58,320
visited Russia in 18th century 
and kind of visited Russian 

569
00:32:58,320 --> 00:32:59,480
army. 
So how it works. 

570
00:33:00,880 --> 00:33:04,400
And in the 18th century, one of 
his greatest surprises was the 

571
00:33:04,400 --> 00:33:07,120
degree of bureaucracy. 
Like incredible, absolutely mind

572
00:33:07,120 --> 00:33:11,080
blowing. 
He says that no arm in the world

573
00:33:11,400 --> 00:33:14,840
and no like state in the world 
is so much buried under the 

574
00:33:14,840 --> 00:33:20,320
paper because Russian. 
So that like Russian general, he

575
00:33:20,320 --> 00:33:24,040
will be spending his day reading
and signing papers on like 

576
00:33:24,040 --> 00:33:26,680
mattress in Germany. 
No one would even put them on 

577
00:33:26,680 --> 00:33:28,680
paper. 
They're just be done earlier. 

578
00:33:29,840 --> 00:33:33,480
So I think paradoxically, much 
of what we see as solid 

579
00:33:33,480 --> 00:33:35,000
tradition, for example, is 
formalism. 

580
00:33:35,480 --> 00:33:41,280
It's not so much even communist 
thing as just rough and thing of

581
00:33:41,280 --> 00:33:44,400
doing everything formally and 
putting over everything on paper

582
00:33:44,480 --> 00:33:48,120
very meticulously because much 
of what was happening, yes, of 

583
00:33:48,120 --> 00:33:50,200
course there were show trials, 
there were. 

584
00:33:50,760 --> 00:33:53,680
But much of what was Stalin 
doing, it was completely 

585
00:33:53,680 --> 00:33:55,520
illegal, including by Soviet 
laws. 

586
00:33:56,080 --> 00:33:57,480
It was of course, completely 
secret. 

587
00:33:57,680 --> 00:34:01,320
Nothing of that was published. 
And I think that a great deal of

588
00:34:01,320 --> 00:34:04,200
it is not has not been published
yet and will not be published in

589
00:34:04,200 --> 00:34:07,440
the foreseeable future. 
But but it was still very 

590
00:34:07,440 --> 00:34:10,480
formalized. 
So for example, if we compare 

591
00:34:10,480 --> 00:34:15,239
with Nazi Germany, they were 
just documenting stuff less. 

592
00:34:15,880 --> 00:34:19,360
I think in many cases they could
have just not used any paper at 

593
00:34:19,360 --> 00:34:22,920
all, just do it orally. 
And in Soviet Union, you'd have 

594
00:34:22,920 --> 00:34:25,639
protocol, you'd have kind of 
decisions, you'd have 

595
00:34:25,639 --> 00:34:29,800
signatures, much more papers as 
a result, including when it's 

596
00:34:29,800 --> 00:34:31,239
illegal and included with 
secret. 

597
00:34:32,080 --> 00:34:35,560
I think that is, to some degree,
just the national way of doing 

598
00:34:35,639 --> 00:34:37,080
things. 
Interesting. 

599
00:34:37,960 --> 00:34:40,520
OK, so now one other thing that 
relatively few people 

600
00:34:40,520 --> 00:34:44,920
understand, but that you 
understand deeply is that the 

601
00:34:44,920 --> 00:34:48,639
Soviet Union and actually also 
Russia is actually much more 

602
00:34:48,639 --> 00:34:50,560
multi ethnic than Americans 
think. 

603
00:34:51,040 --> 00:34:54,520
Americans think it's just 
Russians to 1st order, right? 

604
00:34:54,520 --> 00:34:56,880
And even when I was a kid, they 
used to call the Soviets 

605
00:34:56,880 --> 00:35:00,560
Russians. 
But it's, it was actually the 

606
00:35:00,560 --> 00:35:04,840
Soviet Union had Eastern 
Europeans and it had Baltics and

607
00:35:04,840 --> 00:35:07,640
had Turkish people and had all 
different kinds of Central Asian

608
00:35:07,640 --> 00:35:09,360
people. 
And for lack of a term, it 

609
00:35:09,360 --> 00:35:12,280
celebrated its diversity. 
And actually towards the end of 

610
00:35:12,280 --> 00:35:16,880
the Soviet Union, it got down to
actually 51% Russia, I think in 

611
00:35:16,880 --> 00:35:19,280
the 89 census, if you remember 
that. 

612
00:35:19,800 --> 00:35:23,960
And nationalism of both the 
Russian and the non Russian 

613
00:35:24,360 --> 00:35:29,040
variety was as big in ending the
Soviet Union as the economic 

614
00:35:29,040 --> 00:35:31,720
collapse. 
And really those things kind of 

615
00:35:31,720 --> 00:35:36,480
work together where the crazy 
economics combined with the 

616
00:35:36,480 --> 00:35:39,520
internal ethnic clashing such 
that the whole thing broke apart

617
00:35:39,520 --> 00:35:42,880
and everybody got their own 
state and or there's a lot of 

618
00:35:42,880 --> 00:35:44,240
shooting over who's going to get
a state. 

619
00:35:46,120 --> 00:35:49,040
And maybe you. 
Have a view on that given that 

620
00:35:49,040 --> 00:35:52,680
you, you know, obviously have to
study this whole thing and being

621
00:35:52,680 --> 00:35:56,360
a kind of ethnic minority 
yourself within the the former 

622
00:35:56,360 --> 00:35:58,720
Soviet Union. 
I mean, you're not old enough to

623
00:35:58,720 --> 00:35:59,920
have lived through that, you 
know what I'm saying? 

624
00:36:00,520 --> 00:36:03,520
Well, I. 
Think that the region I'm coming

625
00:36:03,520 --> 00:36:06,960
from, it's not really in the 
spotlight. 

626
00:36:07,760 --> 00:36:13,640
So when I was in DCI was doing a
fellowship at Wilson Centre and 

627
00:36:13,640 --> 00:36:17,120
kind I suggested them that maybe
I'll write something on North 

628
00:36:17,120 --> 00:36:18,960
Caucasus. 
They said me, Oh no, no, no 

629
00:36:18,960 --> 00:36:20,760
thank you. 
There's no need because there's 

630
00:36:20,760 --> 00:36:22,520
so much written on North 
Caucasus. 

631
00:36:23,720 --> 00:36:26,880
We have that already. 
Maybe better you write something

632
00:36:27,280 --> 00:36:31,000
on your own region on vulgar 
worlds, because actually 

633
00:36:31,720 --> 00:36:35,320
everyone knows about Chechnya 
and Pakistan, but much more 

634
00:36:35,320 --> 00:36:37,520
humorous like ethnicities of 
vulgar worlds. 

635
00:36:37,520 --> 00:36:41,040
They're not. 
There's not much reason on that 

636
00:36:41,040 --> 00:36:46,600
at all. 
So it was kind of, I don't know,

637
00:36:46,600 --> 00:36:51,360
So some kind of unexplored land 
for them, Western discourse. 

638
00:36:51,720 --> 00:36:54,560
So yes, I think there's a 
significant element of truth in 

639
00:36:54,560 --> 00:36:57,760
that. 
Regarding the collapse of Soviet

640
00:36:57,760 --> 00:37:02,520
Union, I think that one of under
discussed factors was of course 

641
00:37:02,520 --> 00:37:03,960
population explosion in Central 
Asia. 

642
00:37:05,280 --> 00:37:10,960
So basically fertility in Slavic
lands, in what is in Russia, 

643
00:37:10,960 --> 00:37:16,640
Ukraine, Belarus, it crashed 
much earlier and in Central Asia

644
00:37:16,640 --> 00:37:21,120
it it remained pretty high. 
So I think in fact they wanted 

645
00:37:21,120 --> 00:37:23,400
to. 
Remain at the end with the in 

646
00:37:23,400 --> 00:37:28,040
the 1991 All Union referendum, 
which I think was like the first

647
00:37:28,040 --> 00:37:30,680
real vote in the Soviet Union in
a long time. 

648
00:37:31,080 --> 00:37:33,480
The Central Asian countries 
wanted to remain in the Soviet 

649
00:37:33,480 --> 00:37:37,400
Union, but Estonia, the Baltics,
boycotted it and that was 

650
00:37:37,400 --> 00:37:41,200
actually them breaking away led 
to the failure Soviet Union. 

651
00:37:41,200 --> 00:37:43,920
In a sense, the Estonians felt 
the deal was not good for them, 

652
00:37:44,280 --> 00:37:46,520
but the central is itself. 
The deal was good for them. 

653
00:37:46,680 --> 00:37:49,120
Yeah, I think it is. 
I think it is true and I think 

654
00:37:49,120 --> 00:37:52,400
that indeed there were countries
in which there are pretty strong

655
00:37:52,480 --> 00:37:54,760
separatist movements. 
Most importantly it's the 

656
00:37:54,760 --> 00:38:01,720
Baltics, but also Georgia and 
also Ukraine, but Central Asia. 

657
00:38:02,080 --> 00:38:05,120
It was not one of them. 
Azerbaijan was not one of them. 

658
00:38:05,760 --> 00:38:09,440
And I think it was the other way
around in the sense that it were

659
00:38:09,440 --> 00:38:12,640
mostly Russians, including 
Russian and including Russian 

660
00:38:12,640 --> 00:38:18,640
bureaucracy that wanted to cut 
off Central Asia, partially 

661
00:38:18,640 --> 00:38:25,120
because they saw it as a sort of
like economic kind of that they 

662
00:38:25,480 --> 00:38:29,960
would have to support it 
financially. 

663
00:38:29,960 --> 00:38:32,960
And another thing that you're 
just afraid there will be too 

664
00:38:32,960 --> 00:38:34,960
many Central Asians. 
Yes, and and the thing of it. 

665
00:38:34,960 --> 00:38:38,920
You know, one thing that I think
is a very important period for 

666
00:38:38,920 --> 00:38:43,640
Americans to understand is 
Russia in the 90s because. 

667
00:38:44,920 --> 00:38:47,920
You know a friend of. 
Mine, you know, Joe Max 

668
00:38:47,920 --> 00:38:53,880
Kebinski, he's a Russian, you 
know, immigrant to post on X. 

669
00:38:53,880 --> 00:38:59,000
Maybe you knew him from X, but 
he mentioned that the 2024 

670
00:38:59,000 --> 00:39:03,560
election, in the aftermath, it 
felt to him a lot like the 

671
00:39:03,560 --> 00:39:05,800
moment in Russia when the Soviet
Union ended. 

672
00:39:06,360 --> 00:39:09,520
And I actually thought that was 
a very good analogy because 

673
00:39:09,520 --> 00:39:13,280
essentially a far left ideology 
was no longer a hegemonic. 

674
00:39:13,720 --> 00:39:15,840
You could openly criticize it. 
There were people who still 

675
00:39:15,840 --> 00:39:19,640
believed in it, but no longer 
like the roof over your head 

676
00:39:19,640 --> 00:39:21,520
that you just had to obey, 
right? 

677
00:39:21,760 --> 00:39:24,720
It was something that had less 
than 50% support and it knew 

678
00:39:24,720 --> 00:39:27,280
that it had less than 50% 
support, which led to a negative

679
00:39:27,280 --> 00:39:29,560
feedback loop. 
But. 

680
00:39:29,720 --> 00:39:35,680
What happened, as you know, is 
after that afterglow of yay, the

681
00:39:35,680 --> 00:39:38,840
Soviet Union's over, a lot of 
the Russians thought that they 

682
00:39:38,840 --> 00:39:42,280
were going to have capitalism 
and everything's going to be 

683
00:39:42,280 --> 00:39:45,160
fine and so, so forth. 
Then Jaeger Guider then 

684
00:39:45,280 --> 00:39:48,840
basically just flipped the 
economy of capitalism overnight.

685
00:39:49,320 --> 00:39:52,240
And, and there's many other 
reasons as to why it didn't 

686
00:39:52,240 --> 00:39:53,360
work. 
You know, there was sort of, 

687
00:39:53,360 --> 00:39:55,920
there was 70 years of communism,
people didn't know how to do 

688
00:39:55,920 --> 00:39:59,160
capitalism and the ruble 
hyperinflated. 

689
00:40:00,240 --> 00:40:03,080
There are all kinds of crazy 
wars, from the Juxy Sunny civil 

690
00:40:03,080 --> 00:40:08,680
war to the Chechnya thing to to 
many other conflicts. 

691
00:40:09,240 --> 00:40:12,680
And, you know, people were 
massively impoverished. 

692
00:40:12,680 --> 00:40:16,880
A lot of the smart people left 
territory that they had won in 

693
00:40:16,880 --> 00:40:20,560
blood was lost in, you know, 
days and on and on and on. 

694
00:40:20,560 --> 00:40:24,200
And basically a superpower. 
What you know, Yeltsin was drunk

695
00:40:24,200 --> 00:40:27,880
and the there was like this 
whole thing with them shelling 

696
00:40:27,880 --> 00:40:29,760
the White House and on and on 
and on. 

697
00:40:29,760 --> 00:40:32,920
Basically, it's really sucked to
be Russian in the 90s. 

698
00:40:33,560 --> 00:40:38,240
And then it was the aftermath of
that that led to Putin being 

699
00:40:38,240 --> 00:40:41,400
like sort of a, I think you know
the term if I'm mispronouncing 

700
00:40:41,400 --> 00:40:44,320
it, the Silovicki figures, 
right, The security state thing,

701
00:40:44,320 --> 00:40:47,200
which you've written about. 
So they came to, he came to 

702
00:40:47,200 --> 00:40:50,360
power in 99 and he was a total 
cipher and people didn't know 

703
00:40:50,360 --> 00:40:53,640
what to make of him. 
But he was Yeltsin's guy for I 

704
00:40:53,640 --> 00:40:56,720
think running Moscow. 
And then, you know, got elevated

705
00:40:56,720 --> 00:41:01,000
and then he consolidated power, 
went after the businessmen, the 

706
00:41:01,000 --> 00:41:04,240
so-called oligarchs, basically 
knocked him out one by one, 

707
00:41:04,280 --> 00:41:06,960
reconsolidated power in Russia, 
made nice with the West while 

708
00:41:06,960 --> 00:41:10,520
doing so, kept in the G8 and 
then only really started getting

709
00:41:10,520 --> 00:41:14,120
aggressive by the late 2000s 
with the invasion of Georgia. 

710
00:41:14,520 --> 00:41:19,160
And then it was finally with the
invasion of Crimea in 2014 that 

711
00:41:19,760 --> 00:41:23,200
then, you know, the the US 
started to they kicked him out 

712
00:41:23,200 --> 00:41:25,680
of the G8 and then started to 
arm Ukraine. 

713
00:41:25,680 --> 00:41:28,840
And then over the last 10 years,
Russia's economy is being 

714
00:41:28,840 --> 00:41:33,320
flattish, but it's actually 
seemingly done surprisingly well

715
00:41:33,520 --> 00:41:36,640
in this war, which is totally 
unnecessary. 

716
00:41:36,680 --> 00:41:40,920
But they're being backed in part
by China, and it looks like 

717
00:41:40,920 --> 00:41:42,640
they're kind of fighting to a 
standstill now. 

718
00:41:44,200 --> 00:41:47,360
So that is at least how I 
understand the last 20-30 years 

719
00:41:47,920 --> 00:41:51,360
of Russia since the end of the 
Soviet Union. 

720
00:41:51,680 --> 00:41:54,800
I'm not sure if you'd agree or 
disagree with that or give your 

721
00:41:55,120 --> 00:41:57,680
kind of take on what I'm getting
brought, obviously as you know 

722
00:41:57,680 --> 00:42:01,840
this appointment. 
By 1990s, not only but I think 

723
00:42:01,840 --> 00:42:04,600
most of people in former Soviet 
Union would agree with that 

724
00:42:05,080 --> 00:42:07,080
because that is indeed what 
happened to a significant 

725
00:42:07,080 --> 00:42:09,320
degree. 
So kind of invalid USR. 

726
00:42:09,320 --> 00:42:12,640
There was a lot of like positive
hope and positive dreams and 

727
00:42:12,640 --> 00:42:17,520
many kind of Harvard ideas that 
now will kind of throw away 

728
00:42:17,520 --> 00:42:19,560
people partners. 
Will kind of throw. 

729
00:42:19,920 --> 00:42:23,400
Away communism and we'll go to 
capitalism and it's going to be 

730
00:42:23,400 --> 00:42:25,200
all right. 
And yes, indeed, for almost 

731
00:42:25,200 --> 00:42:28,160
everyone it was a bitter 
disappointment, except very few.

732
00:42:29,280 --> 00:42:33,480
That is indeed true. 
Why was this the case? 

733
00:42:33,480 --> 00:42:36,200
That's an interesting question. 
You see, I wouldn't really 

734
00:42:36,200 --> 00:42:38,560
formulate it in terms of like 
communism and capitalism 

735
00:42:38,560 --> 00:42:43,400
dichotomy, although many of like
Russian or Ukrainian or 

736
00:42:43,400 --> 00:42:46,280
whatever, like people were 
really disappointed by 

737
00:42:46,280 --> 00:42:50,400
capitalism. 
That is true because let's look 

738
00:42:50,400 --> 00:42:54,800
up on let's look at China. 
So basically another splendid 

739
00:42:54,800 --> 00:42:57,960
economy with very similar 
ideology with similar 

740
00:42:57,960 --> 00:43:01,520
institutions that roughly the 
same period also went through 

741
00:43:01,520 --> 00:43:03,520
market reforms, but with very 
different results. 

742
00:43:04,520 --> 00:43:09,000
And I think that may be a sort 
of an illusion like a foreign 

743
00:43:09,000 --> 00:43:13,120
like me could harbor that China 
went through them smoothly. 

744
00:43:13,160 --> 00:43:16,160
Oh no, not at all. 
Because China, of course, like 

745
00:43:16,640 --> 00:43:20,520
pretty much every post communist
country, it had its own painful 

746
00:43:20,520 --> 00:43:24,240
transition. 
It had its own socio economic 

747
00:43:24,240 --> 00:43:29,360
health. 
So just a small example. 

748
00:43:30,240 --> 00:43:34,960
So like in China, when Mao 
Zedong died, they had their 

749
00:43:34,960 --> 00:43:37,040
plans of economic reforms. 
They had plans of 

750
00:43:37,040 --> 00:43:40,880
industrializations or we'll 
build so much industry all based

751
00:43:40,880 --> 00:43:43,120
upon assumption that we have 
very much oil. 

752
00:43:44,480 --> 00:43:49,280
So we are planning to discover 
new oil deposits of which we are

753
00:43:49,280 --> 00:43:53,560
sure there are many and become 
an oil superpower and by like 

754
00:43:53,560 --> 00:43:57,040
1985, we are going to export 
more than Saudi Arabia. 

755
00:43:57,440 --> 00:44:02,200
That was the plan. 
So in 1979, I don't remember, 

756
00:44:02,200 --> 00:44:06,000
they mined something like 
8,000,000 meters. 

757
00:44:06,680 --> 00:44:12,240
They drilled like some 8,000,000
meters of holes and found 

758
00:44:12,240 --> 00:44:17,200
exactly 0 new oil deposit. 
Next year they closed more than 

759
00:44:17,200 --> 00:44:21,240
half of their steel plants. 
So what I mean that there had 

760
00:44:21,240 --> 00:44:25,960
been a lot of like economic 
pain, economic disillusionment, 

761
00:44:25,960 --> 00:44:32,120
disappointment, a lot of a lot 
of state owned enterprises in 

762
00:44:32,120 --> 00:44:35,880
China, plenty of them they 
suffered or just were wiped out.

763
00:44:36,400 --> 00:44:40,120
So generally speaking, you have 
some of the processes you are 

764
00:44:40,120 --> 00:44:45,040
witnessing in the SSR with the 
Blues on the state of the 

765
00:44:45,040 --> 00:44:48,120
industry, of the government 
sponsored organizations and a 

766
00:44:48,120 --> 00:44:50,000
huge pain it inflicts on the 
population. 

767
00:44:50,440 --> 00:44:53,200
So for example, imagine that 
you've worked all your life on 

768
00:44:53,200 --> 00:44:57,080
some kind of steel state owned 
plant and then it closes and the

769
00:44:57,080 --> 00:44:59,720
entire sector basically wipes 
getting wiped out. 

770
00:45:00,320 --> 00:45:04,120
And you are maybe, I don't know,
at the age of 40, you don't have

771
00:45:04,120 --> 00:45:05,560
any skills for the private 
market. 

772
00:45:05,560 --> 00:45:08,000
And you are basically like, it's
really, really bad. 

773
00:45:09,000 --> 00:45:13,840
So entire generations of Chinese
people, they ended with very bad

774
00:45:14,720 --> 00:45:18,520
like final results of their life
just due to the economic 

775
00:45:18,520 --> 00:45:21,160
transition. 
In this regard, it's very 

776
00:45:21,160 --> 00:45:23,200
similar to what was happening in
the post USSR. 

777
00:45:23,480 --> 00:45:25,120
The question is what was 
different. 

778
00:45:26,040 --> 00:45:30,160
And I think part of the answer 
is the logic of the leadership 

779
00:45:30,160 --> 00:45:34,440
was very, very different in the 
USSR. 

780
00:45:37,120 --> 00:45:40,280
Part of difference between like 
Russia or Ukraine, for example, 

781
00:45:40,280 --> 00:45:44,440
from China is that in the USSR a
socialist economy and planned 

782
00:45:44,440 --> 00:45:48,160
economy, it will just better. 
So Soviet planned economy was 

783
00:45:48,160 --> 00:45:49,920
better than Chinese planned 
planned economy. 

784
00:45:50,480 --> 00:45:52,680
It was bad, it was richer, it 
was more functional. 

785
00:45:53,720 --> 00:45:57,520
If the SSR by the end of USSR, 
you had plenty of enterprises 

786
00:45:58,000 --> 00:46:02,480
that functioned well, that were 
equipped well, that were like 

787
00:46:02,480 --> 00:46:05,600
equipped with like modern 
machines and that could make 

788
00:46:05,600 --> 00:46:09,040
export products for years and 
for decades and actually earn 

789
00:46:09,040 --> 00:46:13,000
some cash for their owners. 
So basically you can just see 

790
00:46:13,000 --> 00:46:16,520
some plant, you can take control
over it and you can milk it for 

791
00:46:16,520 --> 00:46:20,240
decades investing nothing. 
And in China, nothing like that 

792
00:46:20,240 --> 00:46:23,200
really existed. 
Very, very little, partially 

793
00:46:23,200 --> 00:46:26,440
because Chinese planned economy 
was just so much more 

794
00:46:26,440 --> 00:46:28,280
dysfunctional. 
Yes. 

795
00:46:28,280 --> 00:46:32,040
They actually had to add value 
and whereas the Russians had to 

796
00:46:32,040 --> 00:46:36,200
a greater extent working minds 
to Co opt that. 

797
00:46:36,240 --> 00:46:41,240
So let me slightly push back on 
that because my view is it's 

798
00:46:41,240 --> 00:46:44,360
actually hard to do anything at 
a profit and. 

799
00:46:45,480 --> 00:46:46,840
Impartial. 
Defense. 

800
00:46:46,880 --> 00:46:49,880
OK, so let me get, let me give 
something which let's call it a 

801
00:46:49,880 --> 00:46:53,400
thought experiment, OK? 
Let's say you're a. 

802
00:46:53,400 --> 00:46:57,360
Foreign businessman. 
And it's 1992, OK, And someone 

803
00:46:57,360 --> 00:47:01,920
is telling you, hey, do you want
to buy this coal mine in 

804
00:47:01,920 --> 00:47:05,160
Siberia? 
It hasn't made a profit in 70 

805
00:47:05,160 --> 00:47:08,240
years. 
It doesn't really have great 

806
00:47:08,240 --> 00:47:12,480
infrastructure. 
And by the way, this is in the 

807
00:47:12,480 --> 00:47:14,280
former Soviet Union. 
You don't know if communism is 

808
00:47:14,280 --> 00:47:17,480
going to come back, which 
abolish all private property. 

809
00:47:18,040 --> 00:47:21,280
And even if it doesn't come 
back, you don't really have as 

810
00:47:21,280 --> 00:47:23,680
much of A functional state. 
You've got this mafia government

811
00:47:23,920 --> 00:47:29,040
which will cut you if you try to
move anything out, and also 

812
00:47:29,040 --> 00:47:30,640
contracts. 
Who's going to enforce the 

813
00:47:30,640 --> 00:47:35,800
contracts? 
Workers, 234 generations haven't

814
00:47:35,800 --> 00:47:37,520
even understood what capitalism 
is. 

815
00:47:37,520 --> 00:47:40,480
It's basically pre 1917 before 
they remember stock markets, 

816
00:47:40,480 --> 00:47:43,640
contracts, even the fact that 
they can be fired and on and on.

817
00:47:43,840 --> 00:47:46,800
There's all these operational 
difficulties associated with it.

818
00:47:47,360 --> 00:47:50,120
And as a consequence, you say, 
OK, if we're going to do that, 

819
00:47:50,600 --> 00:47:52,640
I'm going to need to get this 
for cents on the dollar. 

820
00:47:54,000 --> 00:47:56,440
Right that. 
Would be the argument of that 

821
00:47:56,440 --> 00:47:59,720
foreign businessman for them to 
make that kind of investment, 

822
00:48:00,240 --> 00:48:02,560
given how uncertain it would be 
and how difficult it would be to

823
00:48:02,560 --> 00:48:05,680
operate that business profitably
if you just put yourself in the 

824
00:48:05,680 --> 00:48:09,480
shoes of someone who's doing 
something like that, they say, 

825
00:48:09,480 --> 00:48:13,040
OK, we need to get this for 
cents on the dollar because 

826
00:48:13,040 --> 00:48:15,640
someone could get killed. 
Like we'd have to figure out, 

827
00:48:16,040 --> 00:48:17,440
you know, how to make this thing
make a profit. 

828
00:48:17,440 --> 00:48:21,160
We're going to have to buy crazy
new equipment since the Soviet 

829
00:48:21,160 --> 00:48:24,640
equipment is often terrible or 
breaks or it's made to low 

830
00:48:24,640 --> 00:48:26,120
standards and so on and so 
forth. 

831
00:48:26,440 --> 00:48:28,440
And a lot of that will have to 
be imported and it'll have to be

832
00:48:28,440 --> 00:48:31,280
gotten through and God knows 
what, you know, the customs are 

833
00:48:31,280 --> 00:48:33,080
going to charge. 
And so and so it's all kinds of 

834
00:48:33,080 --> 00:48:37,000
uncertain costs which are which 
arise because you have to 

835
00:48:37,000 --> 00:48:38,400
provide your own security and so
on. 

836
00:48:39,280 --> 00:48:44,440
So I think that's maybe somewhat
at least without seeing numbers,

837
00:48:44,480 --> 00:48:47,400
my intuition would be it's not 
that easy to. 

838
00:48:47,880 --> 00:48:50,960
One other thing, by the way, is 
something like coal or oil. 

839
00:48:51,360 --> 00:48:53,280
It is a commodity product, 
right? 

840
00:48:53,400 --> 00:48:56,360
The whole point is it can be 
pulled out of the ground at a 

841
00:48:56,360 --> 00:48:58,880
lot of different places around 
the world and the sort of global

842
00:48:58,880 --> 00:49:00,800
market for it. 
And if you're producing the 

843
00:49:00,800 --> 00:49:03,320
commodity product, you're not in
control of your price. 

844
00:49:04,200 --> 00:49:06,960
So that's just different from 
let's say you're producing 

845
00:49:06,960 --> 00:49:09,040
something like an Apple iPhone, 
you've set your price. 

846
00:49:09,320 --> 00:49:12,440
If you're producing coal or oil,
your price is set by the market.

847
00:49:13,480 --> 00:49:16,160
I mean, there's various, you 
know, different subtypes of coal

848
00:49:16,160 --> 00:49:19,200
and oil and, you know, light, 
sweet, crude or whatever the 

849
00:49:19,200 --> 00:49:21,800
terminology is for different 
kinds of, you know, like like 

850
00:49:22,240 --> 00:49:25,360
like refinements and so on. 
But but you're not in control of

851
00:49:25,360 --> 00:49:28,080
your price. 
So I would somewhat push back 

852
00:49:28,120 --> 00:49:31,800
maybe on the idea that it was 
just goldmine waiting to be 

853
00:49:31,800 --> 00:49:33,080
exploited. 
Let me know your thoughts on 

854
00:49:33,080 --> 00:49:33,760
that. 
Go ahead. 

855
00:49:34,120 --> 00:49:35,640
Now let's look. 
At it another way. 

856
00:49:36,480 --> 00:49:39,160
So basically, I think you're 
right that for example, imagines

857
00:49:39,160 --> 00:49:43,320
there's some kind of mine or a 
factory and a foreign investor 

858
00:49:43,320 --> 00:49:48,680
comes and he is indeed probably 
likely to pay for it 

859
00:49:48,680 --> 00:49:52,200
considerably less than if like 
exactly the same plant was 

860
00:49:52,200 --> 00:49:54,440
located like in France, I don't 
know, or in Germany, that is 

861
00:49:54,440 --> 00:49:58,080
true. 
So he would probably buy it 

862
00:49:58,080 --> 00:50:02,720
relatively cheap if you could. 
But that is a foreign investor 

863
00:50:02,760 --> 00:50:06,680
who comes with money. 
Unlike foreign investors, there 

864
00:50:06,680 --> 00:50:09,840
are no basically no people with 
money and they started by that 

865
00:50:09,840 --> 00:50:15,400
point. 
So when we do privatization and 

866
00:50:15,400 --> 00:50:18,880
we limit each to kind of local 
nations, that means practically 

867
00:50:18,880 --> 00:50:22,040
speaking that is what happened, 
that we do not sell anything 

868
00:50:22,040 --> 00:50:23,200
because there are no people with
money. 

869
00:50:23,720 --> 00:50:26,040
We in reality distributing it 
for free. 

870
00:50:26,600 --> 00:50:29,200
Maybe it will be kind of 
disguised by also like tricky 

871
00:50:29,200 --> 00:50:32,120
financial schemes, but in 
practice we can only distribute 

872
00:50:32,120 --> 00:50:35,040
it. 
And that means, first of all, 

873
00:50:35,200 --> 00:50:36,560
that we are not getting any 
money. 

874
00:50:37,320 --> 00:50:39,720
If the governor more wanted to 
get any money for their 

875
00:50:39,720 --> 00:50:42,960
manufacturers, it should have 
sells them for foreigners 

876
00:50:43,080 --> 00:50:44,760
because they were the only 
people with money. 

877
00:50:46,240 --> 00:50:48,960
And that is one thing. 
Foreigners could have brought 

878
00:50:48,960 --> 00:50:53,000
money that could pay, for 
example, for social expenses in 

879
00:50:53,000 --> 00:50:56,120
general, like alleviate the 
general crisis, like the life 

880
00:50:56,120 --> 00:51:00,000
conditions could be better. 
Second, foreign companies could 

881
00:51:00,000 --> 00:51:03,320
have brought expertise because 
if you look in China, that is 

882
00:51:03,320 --> 00:51:05,920
exactly what happened. 
Almost all of complicated 

883
00:51:05,920 --> 00:51:11,160
technologies, almost all of 
complicated knowledge. 

884
00:51:11,480 --> 00:51:14,400
It was originally brought by 
foreigners, by the Taiwanese, by

885
00:51:14,400 --> 00:51:16,920
the Japanese, by the Koreans, by
all sorts of westerners. 

886
00:51:17,640 --> 00:51:20,000
Like one story I read recently, 
it's pretty funny. 

887
00:51:20,640 --> 00:51:25,040
So how Chinese micro industry 
began? 

888
00:51:26,640 --> 00:51:31,520
As I read, it began with Dutch 
Philips company that opened its 

889
00:51:31,520 --> 00:51:34,080
factory in Tsenjin. 
And it's interesting because 

890
00:51:34,080 --> 00:51:35,800
they're not really planning to 
do changing. 

891
00:51:35,800 --> 00:51:37,920
Originally it was not a part of 
the plan. 

892
00:51:38,000 --> 00:51:39,480
They're planning to do it in 
Pakistan. 

893
00:51:39,920 --> 00:51:42,280
It's just that Pakistan 
basically kicked them away. 

894
00:51:42,760 --> 00:51:46,040
They just were making new and 
new conditions, like new and 

895
00:51:46,040 --> 00:51:49,840
new, like burdens, and 
eventually they just changed 

896
00:51:49,840 --> 00:51:55,720
location. 
So my point is that for China, 

897
00:51:55,720 --> 00:52:00,480
foreign companies and foreign 
investors, they served not only 

898
00:52:00,480 --> 00:52:04,960
as a major source of cash, but 
also as a major source of 

899
00:52:04,960 --> 00:52:08,040
expertise, of knowledge. 
And what makes a major 

900
00:52:08,040 --> 00:52:11,440
difference between Russian, 
let's say privatization in 

901
00:52:11,440 --> 00:52:14,800
Chinese, that in China, foreign 
investors will loot. 

902
00:52:15,800 --> 00:52:18,600
They're often like invited. 
And in Russia, they're 

903
00:52:18,600 --> 00:52:22,560
absolutely excluded. 
It was more like 0 sum thinking 

904
00:52:22,720 --> 00:52:26,160
and a little bit, you know, like
dragon, dragon smile thinking. 

905
00:52:26,360 --> 00:52:30,600
So that is my kind hoard of gold
and I'll not allow like any 

906
00:52:30,600 --> 00:52:33,480
filthy hobbits to take a bit of 
it. 

907
00:52:34,240 --> 00:52:36,640
So it was much more of defensive
thinking. 

908
00:52:36,880 --> 00:52:39,760
It's not that we will create 
something new and interesting if

909
00:52:39,760 --> 00:52:43,360
it was in China, as that we will
not allow anyone to take a bit 

910
00:52:43,360 --> 00:52:46,360
of our treasure. 
Better like in practice. 

911
00:52:46,360 --> 00:52:49,400
In practice, it's not that we'll
do anything with this factory, 

912
00:52:49,600 --> 00:52:52,560
but better let this factory 
erode than to give it to someone

913
00:52:52,560 --> 00:52:57,560
else. 
So, and one thing I'm indeed 

914
00:52:57,560 --> 00:53:00,600
noticing in modern America that 
yeah, I think there's a little 

915
00:53:00,600 --> 00:53:04,880
bit of post of advice here, a 
little bit of like 0 sum and 

916
00:53:04,880 --> 00:53:09,480
very defensive kind of thinking,
not so much about like creating 

917
00:53:09,480 --> 00:53:12,920
anything cool, interesting. 
I don't know, profitable as 

918
00:53:12,920 --> 00:53:20,200
about like guarding our like 
pile of wealth against all kinds

919
00:53:20,200 --> 00:53:22,280
of like hungry thieves all 
around. 

920
00:53:22,840 --> 00:53:25,600
Interesting. 
OK, cool. 

921
00:53:25,800 --> 00:53:30,080
All right. 
So I am if there's one of the 

922
00:53:30,080 --> 00:53:33,680
things I want to wrap now and 
we'll let's see if we can add 

923
00:53:33,680 --> 00:53:37,640
this down into some crisp stuff.
If there's any essays that you 

924
00:53:37,640 --> 00:53:41,560
want to put on screen, if you've
got some good sub sects. 

925
00:53:41,560 --> 00:53:43,680
I actually I thought the 
revolution was very good. 

926
00:53:43,800 --> 00:53:48,320
I thought the conservatives 
noticing things was a good one, 

927
00:53:48,600 --> 00:53:54,600
meaning the I thought the one 
where conservatives or those who

928
00:53:54,600 --> 00:53:58,200
are out of power can. 
Call something by its. 

929
00:53:58,200 --> 00:54:00,480
Name in a way those in power 
will ignore it, like Stalin 

930
00:54:00,480 --> 00:54:02,400
would ignore the power, but 
those outside. 

931
00:54:02,400 --> 00:54:06,160
That was an interesting one. 
And then I thought you had a 

932
00:54:06,160 --> 00:54:08,120
third one, a thread on the 
Sylvic's, which is good. 

933
00:54:08,120 --> 00:54:09,600
Anything else that people should
go and read? 

934
00:54:10,240 --> 00:54:12,160
I think let's do. 
One, let's do all that of 

935
00:54:12,160 --> 00:54:17,240
noticing things among other like
good among it has a good 

936
00:54:17,240 --> 00:54:20,280
quality, it is relatively short 
good so. 

937
00:54:21,200 --> 00:54:23,200
Thank you. 
Thank you Sir, and this is 

938
00:54:23,200 --> 00:54:25,680
interesting. 
And send me any books that you 

939
00:54:25,680 --> 00:54:29,920
think we should put on and I'll 
put them on screen. 

940
00:54:31,360 --> 00:54:34,560
Any like, you know, for example,
all this book, you know, because

941
00:54:34,560 --> 00:54:36,320
you're talking about the 
structure of Europe and so and 

942
00:54:36,320 --> 00:54:39,520
so forth with a specific book or
two, maybe maybe there's three 

943
00:54:39,520 --> 00:54:40,800
books. 
Do you recommend any three books

944
00:54:40,800 --> 00:54:42,560
that people read that maybe 
people don't know? 

945
00:54:43,400 --> 00:54:44,800
Thank. 
You I'll send by the evening. 

946
00:54:45,160 --> 00:54:46,280
OK, Good all. 
Right. 

947
00:54:46,360 --> 00:54:47,160
Thanks, Sir. 
Thank you. 

948
00:54:47,200 --> 00:54:47,720
Have a good day.