Trump Embodies the Crisis of Capitalism: A Conversation With Naomi Klein

A powerful and vital interview. ― Molly
 

President Donald Trump talks with journalists after signing tax reform legislation into law in the Oval Office December 22, 2017, in Washington, DC.

By Laura Flanders, Truthout | Interview 

How did we get to the Trump presidency and the current political moment? How might things get worse and what can we do to build an alternative? In her new book, Naomi Klein offers what she describes as "a plan for how, if we keep our heads, we might just be able to flip the script and arrive at a radically better future." Arundhati Roy calls No Is Not Enough "an ordinary person's guide to hope." Order your copy today by making a donation to Truthout!

After the spate of disastrous floods, fires and quakes that have shocked us this year, this is a good time to revisit Naomi Klein, whose work continues to dig deep into the way that the global capitalists use shock and chaos to advance their agenda, regardless of the impact on the vulnerable. It's hard to think of a national or global emergency that Donald Trump hasn't tried to exploit for his own purposes, but still, a year after his election, roughly 30 percent of Americans polled continue to support his presidency. What is Trump selling? Who's buying? And why? And what do those who consider themselves part of the resistance need to say "yes" to, after so many months and years of saying "no" to Trump and Trumpism? Naomi Klein is the author of 2017's No Is Not Enough, as well as The Shock Doctrine, No Logo and This Changes Everything. You can watch this conversation -- and many more like this -- on the Laura Flanders Show, or subscribe to the free podcast: @lfshow

Laura Flanders: I'm waiting for the book that has "YES" as big on the cover.

Naomi Klein: Yeah, yeah. No, it's true. I don't like that when you look at it from far all you see is "No," because that's the opposite message of the book.

There's a really important insight in this book, which has to do with the story we tell about capitalism. It's changed. No longer the lifting of all boats. Can you just stop there and talk about the implications?

Well, I mean, we are in this moment where the ascendant moment for the so-called free-market project is in profound crisis, and in truth, it's been in crisis for a long time. It's been a kind of slow crisis with various stages, right? It was in crisis really, since it no longer became possible to negotiate a free-trade agreement with the consent of all the countries involved.

Lots of people would say it is crisis.

... that it is crisis, absolutely. I think there was a period from the '80s and '90s, let's just say, the Reagan/Thatcher moment through the Clinton era, maybe up until ... Seattle [in] 1999, where there was still ... the promise and the propaganda of just, "We just need more capitalism and that's what's going to fix it. We need to deregulate markets further, we need to privatize everything. We need to lock it all in with these corporate free trade deals ..."

... and that in so doing, we'd raise all boats.

Yeah, that it was going to spread around the world, prosperity for everyone. That phase of bringing in every corner of the globe into this singular project, that is what's been in crisis, and it's been in crisis because, for a long time, it was largely at the level of promise. Like, "If we do this, then this will happen...." But now, we're in a moment where there's a mountain of data, thanks to theorists like Thomas Piketty who have shown us so dramatically how inequality has widened everywhere -- that these policies have been adopted, and lived experience, right?

So, that crisis, I think, has been building now for a couple of decades, but the 2008 financial crisis, watching the powerful break all of their lives in broad daylight, right? Intervening so dramatically in the market, doing all the things that they said couldn't be done, everyone saw that, and once you see it, you can't unsee it. You understand that the rules can be broken.

The other aspect of this is that the story about lifting all boats is up against a scenario, a reality where I think the last story I heard today was five people -- five men -- have between them the wealth equivalent to half the rest of the population, the rest of the world's assets? Something like $400 billion.

Yep, 50 percent, yeah.

So, what you say in the book is that we replace that story of "capitalism will help everybody" with the story of "it's winners and losers and you don't want to be a loser."

Right, right, and that is key to understanding Trump, because what he has been selling in this period as the wealth gap has widened, this period of a small group of super winners, and a whole lot of people who are just losing, is: "I will teach you how to be a winner." I think it's really important to understand that that is what he has been promising since he wrote The Art of the Deal. Like, "I'm going to teach you how to be like me, never mind that wealth is inherited, never mind that everything was handed to me...." And this is what he was selling at Trump University. "I'm going to turn you into the next Donald Trump." University, right. That's what "The Apprentice" was, right?

Yeah.

This ticket up to the "promised land," up the elevator to Trump Tower, and it was precisely because ... the alternative to that was getting worse and worse, that that was such a helpful sales pitch for him.

You make the point that he's not the explanation for us being in this situation, but he is an expression of it ... we all live in this ranking, rating world with enormous implications. I think, among other things, for organizing. How do you see it playing out?

Well, you know, I end the book with this section that I worried would be a little bit controversial, about how we need to kill our "inner Trump;" and I want to be clear, I'm not saying, "Kill Trump." Our "Inner Trump." The parts of ourselves that are a little bit Trumpish. I'm not saying that we are all the same as Trump, I'm not saying we are all equally responsible ... but I am saying that he is a product of our culture. That he could become president is a product of our culture, and we're all in the culture.

Please continue this interview here: http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/43002-trump-embodies-the-crisis-of-capitalism-a-conversation-with-naomi-klein