Speaker 1: Let's go next to Meg from Seattle.
Meg, welcome.
Speaker 3: Hi, David.
Thanks for taking my call.
Speaker 1: My pleasure.
Speaker 4: So you've probably heard the the phrase that there's no ethical consumption
under capitalism.
I was wondering, do you agree with that, Gary?
Speaker 1: No.
I mean, listen, they are in general, I don't agree with almost any of these overarching
absolutes for such broad statements.
There is no ethical consumption under capitalism.
I mean, listen, you can you can argue that that's the case and you can argue that there
there are hardcore free marketeers who say the only ethical system is free market capitalism.
I find it so unproductive to argue about such overarching, broad statements, like, I'm more
interested in figuring out how can we improve the economic system we have so that it works
better for more people and raises up the standard of living and gets more people health care
and rewarding well-compensated jobs.
I just don't know that we get there by arguing about whether there's any ethical consumption
under capitalism.
To me, it really seems like a distraction.
Speaker 4: I think that's a good point.
And I'm guessing you don't have time to go into, you know, what alternative, you know
what alternatives.
You know, you would propose to capitalism.
Like you said, you you're more interested in looking at what we can do to make things
better.
Yeah.
Speaker 1: No, I mean, listen, Meg, the the general outlook I have is that social democracy
in the style of many northern European countries is the direction I would like to go.
I'm okay with markets directing resources in many areas.
I'm okay with there being, you know, a film and television, live streaming, private industry
and decisions being made by private companies about what to produce and then selling it
to Netflix or Hulu or like I'm okay with that.
I think that that's okay.
I don't need to socialize every industry, but also we need to be regulating industry
significantly for the betterment of our planet.
We need to be taxing the very rich in order to fund programs to make sure that no one
drops below a certain standard of living.
We need to be taking certain industries out of the market, and that includes health care
and others.
I mean, that's my general view of how I would structure things to improve from where we
are now.
Speaker 4: Absolutely.
I mean, our economic system is just one piece.
Speaker 3: A very big piece of all the systems that aren't working.
Speaker 4: That are pretty broken.
Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely.
Absolutely.
Yes.
Like I'm more interested in that than like, is there ethical consumption under capitalism?
Call me crazy, Meg.
Speaker 3: Sure, sure.
Quick follow up.
Speaker 4: Yes.
You know, I've also heard it say that, you know, that we're in like late stage capitalism.
And I'll be honest, I haven't done a huge amount of research on that specifically.
But do you do you agree do you think we're in late stage capitalism?
Speaker 1: I have absolutely no idea.
Is that that's you know, there's this whole movement that makes that claim.
I think we just have to wait and see.
And we things are sort of unprecedented in that modern humanity is a tiny fingernail
on the wingspan of how long humans have been on this planet and countries.
The size and power of today's superpowers are also basically unprecedented.
And so we are in new territory.
And I don't know, it could be that this is that that we are going to continue improving
on capitalism for the next thousand years.
It could be that capitalism is 20 years from collapse.
I have absolutely no idea.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Well, thank you so much for taking my call.
Speaker 1: David Thank you.
Mag Important questions which I very much appreciate hearing from you.
Let's go next to Lucas from Massachusetts.
Lucas, welcome to the program.
Lucas from Massachusetts.
You are muting yourself.
You have to unmute yourself for me to be able to hear you.
I've unmuted you, but you must unmute yourself.
And last chance for Lucas from Massachusetts.
You are on, but you must unmute yourself.
In order for me to hear you.
Right and no Lucas.
Unfortunately, Lucas wanted to stay muted.