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Marxism & Critical Theory- Economic power structures · Diplomacy and International Relations

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  Welcome to Diplomacy and International Relations by
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  Bastian Freiburg. Hi there.
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  Today, we're really going to dig into some pretty challenging
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  ideas in international political economy.
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  Yeah, we're looking at theories that ask some uncomfortable
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  questions, right? Exactly.
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  Our mission is to explore frameworks like dependency
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  theory and world systems analysis.
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  These basically argue that, you know, mainstream economics
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  misses the point about global inequality.
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  It misses the structural drivers, the deep reasons for
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  polarization. Precisely.
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  We're diving into the argument that these more radical views,
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  often pushed to the margins, might actually be essential for
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  understanding how global capitalism, well, really works
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  today. So they reject that level
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  playing field idea. Completely, they argue the
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  system is built hierarchically, built on exploitation
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  essentially. And that hierarchy involves
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  specific zones periphery. And semi periphery, Yeah, if
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  you've ever looked at the world and wondered why wealth seems to
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  constantly flow from the global S to the north.
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  These theories say that's not an accident.
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  They say the system is working exactly as it's designed to.
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  OK, quite a claim. Before we unpack those
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  structures, just a quick reminder for you listening.
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  Oh yes, if you enjoy these deep dives and maybe you want some
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  extra content, you can subscribe on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
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  There's a small monthly fee, helps keep us going.
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  Links in the description. Right, so let's get into how
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  this whole idea of a global division of Labor came about.
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  Where did it start? Well, the roots go back to the
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  1960s dependency theory and world systems analysis or WOSA
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  is it's often. Called KUSA, right?
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  They emerge as a kind of intellectual backlash, a
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  reaction against the standard development advice given to
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  poorer countries. The advice that basically said
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  just copy us the West and you'll catch up eventually.
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  Exactly. But as history showed, that just
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  wasn't really happening for many nations.
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  Then neoliberalism took over in the 70s and 80s.
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  Yes, the rise of market fundamentalism kind of sidelined
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  these structural critiques. But the interesting thing is,
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  what's that? Recent data, especially looking
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  at the last few decades of globalization, suggest these
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  older theories might still hold a lot of water.
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  They still seem to explain quite a lot.
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  So let's talk about the core structure.
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  They propose the core periphery model, Wallerstein's good
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  contribution. Emmanuel Wallerstein, Yes, he
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  really systematized it. And what he stressed was, look,
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  this isn't new. The global system has been
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  capitalist and fundamentally unequal, he argued, since the
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  16th century. Wow.
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  OK, since the 1500s. So you have this global
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  division, the core countries. Think North America, Western
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  Europe. They focus on the high tech,
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  high value stuff, advanced manufacturing, finance, services
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  and the periphery. The periphery's role is
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  primarily to supply the core raw materials, agricultural goods,
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  commodities and, crucially, cheap labor.
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  And there's a middle group too, the semi periphery.
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  Exactly. They're kind of caught in metal.
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  They might have some industry, they might exploit peripheral
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  countries below them. But they're also exploited by
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  the core above them. Yes, it's a dynamic hierarchy.
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  Everyone's locked into this relationship.
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  Now these two main theories, dependency and WSA, they sounds
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  similar, but you mentioned there's a key difference in how
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  they analyze things. There is, yeah.
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  It's methodological dependency theory, which you might
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  associate with Andre, Gunder, Frank.
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  Frank. Right.
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  It tends to focus on specific countries or regions.
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  It asks you know why is this particular country
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  underdeveloped? What are the dynamics within it,
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  often linked to the core? OK, so country level analysis.
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  Mostly, whereas WSA Wallerstein's approach insist
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  the only valid unit of analysis is the entire global system, the
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  world economy itself. You can't understand one part
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  without seeing the whole picture.
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  Exactly, WSA argues you can't grasp why a country is poor
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  without understanding its specific function within that
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  larger capitalist world system. And Frank's conclusion with
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  independency theory was pretty provocative.
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  Extremely. He basically argued that
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  development in the rich metropolis and under development
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  in the poorer satellites aren't 2 separate.
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  Things, they're connected. He said they are simultaneous
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  processes, two sides of the same coin.
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  The wealth of the center actively creates and maintains
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  the poverty of the periphery through historical exploitation,
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  starting with colonization, which rigged the game.
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  It created this persistent exploitative relationship where
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  capital, resources, value, It all flows one way from satellite
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  to metropolis. And that prevents the periphery
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  from developing its own strong economy.
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  Yes, it distorts their economies, makes them dependent,
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  crushes diversification. Frank's stark message was almost
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  The more integrated you are into this global system on unequal
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  terms, the worse off you might be.
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  OK. So that historical context laid
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  the groundwork, but for listeners today, the crucial
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  question is how does this exploitation actually work now
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  in our supposedly globalized free market world?
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  Right. The sources we looked at
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  identify three main mechanisms operating today.
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  These keep that dependency relationship going.
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  What's the first one? It's the continuation of what
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  Marks called primitive accumulation.
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  Primitive accumulation, like the enclosure movements in England
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  forcing people off the land. Historically, yes, that forcible
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  separation of people from their means of production.
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  But today it's modernized, often externalized.
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  It focuses heavily on natural resources.
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  So it's not just history, it's still happening.
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  Absolutely. Think about modern land grabs
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  for mining, for large scale agriculture, maybe even for
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  things like huge carbon offset projects that displace
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  communities. OK, these actions push people
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  off their land deep in the peripheries.
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  Reliance on just extracting stuff.
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  Resources often controlled by multinational corporations based
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  in the core. And a scale is massive.
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  Immense. The UN data mentioned in the
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  sources is striking. Global material extraction went
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  from about 27 billion tons in 1970 to over 92 billion tons a
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  year by 2017. 92 billion tons. That's hard to even picture.
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  It's a. Huge increase and much of that
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  plunder, as these theories would frame it, happens in lower
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  income countries. OK, so that's mechanism 1,
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  ongoing primitive accumulation, especially around resources.
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  What's #2. Mechanism 2 is unequal exchange,
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  specifically in trade and production.
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  Unequal exchange. This relates to wages.
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  Yes, the huge global difference in wages becomes a structural
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  tool. The core argument is simple
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  because wages and resource prices are kept systematically
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  lower in the periphery. Through various historical and
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  political pressures, right? They have to export vastly more
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  actual labor time, more resources, more materials, just
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  to get the same amount of money back in trade compared to the
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  core. So they're exporting more real
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  value than they import. Effectively, yes, it guarantees
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  this continuous structural drain of surplus value from South to
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  north. And this drain, the sources
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  argue, has actually speed up since the 1980s with neoliberal
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  globalization. There was a specific number
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  mentioned, $2.2 trillion. Yes, that's a figure calculated
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  for 2017 alone. The claim is the global N
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  essentially appropriated $2.2 trillion from the global S just
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  to the mechanics of international trade that year.
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  That number is, well, it's shocking.
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  It is. And to give us some context, the
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  researchers making this calculation pointed out that
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  $2.2 trillion would be enough money to end extreme poverty
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  worldwide. How many times over?
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  At least 15 times over in that one year.
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  Now hang on if you're listening and thinking like a mainstream
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  economist. Which is a fair question to ask.
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  You might say, well, isn't that just the market at work?
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  Differences in productivity, comparative advantage?
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  How does this critical perspective respond to that?
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  The critical response is essentially that those very
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  differences in productivity, those comparative advantages,
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  are not natural outcomes of a neutral market.
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  They're manufactured. They argue they are products of
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  the historical power structure created by colonialism,
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  maintained by financial leverage, political pressure,
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  military might. Sometimes it's the hierarchy
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  itself that creates the conditions for this unequal
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  exchange. It's systemic, not just a market
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  blip. OK, that leads us neatly to the
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  third mechanism then. Which is financial
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  subordination. Financial subordination.
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  So moving beyond just trade and goods.
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  Yes, the increasing financialization of the global
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  economy over the last few decades has made developing and
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  emerging economies incredibly vulnerable.
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  Vulnerable. To financial risks, to
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  instability, to crises that often aren't even of their own
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  making. They get caught in these
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  perpetual debt traps. A key reason is they lack
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  genuine monetary policy autonomy.
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  Meaning they can't really control their own interest rates
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  or money supply effectively to manage their own economies.
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  Pretty much their economies get buffeted by financial cycles,
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  interest rate hikes, capital flight that start in the core
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  countries. Decisions made in Washington or
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  London or Frankfurt have huge ripple effects.
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  And that reinforces their weaker position.
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  Absolutely. It locks them into a subordinate
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  role in global finance, where the core controls the liquidity,
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  sets the rules and the periphery often ends up absorbing
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  disproportionate amounts of the risk.
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  So we have resource extraction, unequal trade and financial
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  dominance that paints a pretty bleak picture of structural
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  exploitation. But why is it accepted?
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  Why don't peripheral countries just popped out?
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  That's the $1,000,000 question, isn't it?
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  And that's where we need to move beyond pure economics and look
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  at ideology, at power in a broader sense.
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  This brings us to thinkers like Robert W Cox and Neo
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  Grammatianism. Cox OK, He talks about world
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  order. Yes, Cox argues that world order
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  isn't just about military power or economic clout.
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  It's maintained by a combination of material capabilities, yes,
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  but also institutions and, critically, ideas.
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  Ideas like beliefs and values. Exactly.
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  He borrows heavily from Antonio Gramsci's concept of hegemony.
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  For Granchy and Cox follows this hegemony isn't just brute force
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  or domination, it's more subtle. It's leadership.
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  Leadership. How does that work in an
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  exploitative system? Well, for power to be truly
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  hegemonic, the weaker groups, the subordinate classes or
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  countries need to broadly accept the existing power relations as
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  well. Maybe not good, but legitimate
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  or at least unavoidable normal. Like there's no alternative.
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  Kind of. This consent is secured partly
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  to concessions, but largely through making the dominant
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  groups interest seem like universal interests can.
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  You give an example. Think about the idea that free
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  trade benefits everyone, or that austerity is necessary to fix
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  debt crises. These become the dominant common
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  sense. Cox calls them intersubjective
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  meanings. So these ideas make the system
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  seem natural, even fair. They help to obscure the
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  underlying power dynamics. They make that $2.2 trillion
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  transfer seem less like exploitation mutation and more
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  like, well, just the outcome of global market forces.
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  The price of playing the game. Now, this neogram machine
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  approach, it's often called a critical theory, but there's
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  some debate about whether it fully meets the standards set by
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  earlier critical theorists like the Frankfurt School.
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  That's right, you have thinkers like Max Horkheimer, a key
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  figure in the Frankfurt School, who had a very specific
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  definition of what makes a theory truly critical.
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  What was his standard? For Horkheimer, a critical
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  theory couldn't just describe or explain society.
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  It's explicit goal had to be to critique and ultimately
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  transform society. 2 As he famously put it, liberate human
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  beings from the circumstances that enslave them.
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  So critique plus transformation and the argument against Neo
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  Gramscianism is. The critique is that by focusing
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  so much on how hegemony is maintained, how consent is
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  manufactured, it might underplay resistance.
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  It's all a marginalized fight back.
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  Yes, critics argue that when the subaltern the marginalized
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  groups do resist effectively, the elites often drop the
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  pretense of consent and resort to plain old domination
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  coercion. So the argument goes that maybe
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  Neogram scheme ISM by focusing on this two way hegemony idea
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  stays too centered on power maintenance and doesn't offer a
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  clear enough path for the oppressed to actually overcome
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  their situation. It describes the prison walls
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  very well perhaps, but doesn't show the way out.
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  Interesting distinction. OK, let's pivot slightly to wrap
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  up this overview of critical IPE.
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  There are a couple more specific angles mentioned in the sources,
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  a historical Marxist debate and then a really challenging
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  ecological critique. Right.
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  We can briefly touch on the old debate within Marxism about
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  imperialism. You had Lenin.
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  Famous view Imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism,
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  driven by competition between national monopolies leading to
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  war. Exactly.
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  Competition between big capitalist states carving up the
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  world. That was the dominant view for a
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  long time. But there's an alternative view
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  from Kowski. Karl Kowski, Yeah, He was
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  Lenin's rival on this. He floated this idea of ultra
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  imperialism. Ultra imperialism?
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  What's that? Kowski imagined a future where
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  instead of fighting each other, the big financial capitalist
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  powers might actually form a kind of holy alliance, a
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  peaceful, coordinated cartel basically to jointly exploit the
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  rest of the world. Cooperating to exploit rather
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  than competing. Precisely.
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  And while Lennon obviously won the political argument back
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  then, some people look at the world today with international
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  institutions integrated finance. And they see something, maybe
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  closer to Kowski's vision. It seems perhaps more plausible
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  now, doesn't it? A system of collective
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  coordinated exploitation by a unified global core, rather than
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  just state versus state competition.
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  That's a chilling thought. OK.
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  And the final perspective, the green theory challenge?
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  This one's really fascinating, and maybe the most radical.
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  It comes from thinkers like Alfornborg, building on world
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  systems ideas but giving them an ecological twist.
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  He talks about the thermodynamics of imperialism.
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  Thermodynamics like physics, Energy.
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  Exactly, Kornberg says. Forget just focusing on the
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  monetary value transfer, the $2.2 trillion.
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  Let's look at the transfer of matter and energy.
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  How does that work? He argues that global trade
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  fundamentally is an unequal exchange, not just a value, but
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  a physical stuff. Specifically high quality energy
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  and ordered matter. What scientists call exergy
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  flows from the periphery. Exergy, usable energy, Organized
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  matter. Right.
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  It flows from the periphery to the core.
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  But what flows back? Mostly low quality disordered
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  stuff. Products that represent are used
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  up energy and resources plus pollution.
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  So the core isn't just taking wealth, it's taking physical
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  order, vitality. That's the argument, and market
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  prices are the key mechanism that hides this physical
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  reality. Prices reflect symbolic value,
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  not the actual material cost or energy cost.
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  So the price tag doesn't show the true ecological footprint or
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  the energy drain. Not even close.
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  According to Hornborg, the periphery exports intact high
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  quality resources, forests, minerals, fertile soil embodied
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  in crops, but gets back manufactured goods that
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  represent resources already consumed, energy already
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  dissipated, often leaving the periphery ecologically depleted
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  and disordered. And Hornborg connects this
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  directly to technology. Yes, this is the really
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  provocative part. He argues that industrial
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  technology itself, the very complexity and power accumulated
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  in the core, is inherently tied to this unequal ecological
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  exchange. Meaning advanced technology
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  depends on draining the periphery.
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  That's his claim that the order and technological sophistication
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  of the core are quite literally built upon the disordering of
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  the periphery through this hidden thermodynamic transfer.
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  Wow. OK, that's a lot to take in.
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  It really reframes the whole debate.
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  So bringing this all together, whether you lean towards the
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  classic dependency theorists, or Cox's ideas about hegemony and
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  ideas, or Hornberg's stark ecological critique.
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  Common thread is there. Yes, the focus remains on these
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  deep structural systemic power imbalances that consistently
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  channel wealth, value, maybe even physical order from the
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  periphery to the core. Understanding that structure is
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  crucial, isn't it? Not just for analyzing big
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  international conflicts or trade deals, but even for debates we
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  have domestically about things like climate justice, foreign
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  aid or immigration. It forces you to ask different
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  questions. Absolutely, when you consider
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  the scale of the financial drain claimed, the debt traps, and
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  especially Hornberg's point about the thermodynamics.
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  About the physical basis of industrialism.
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  It really suggests that the whole modern industrial system
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  might be built on this fundamental mismatch, a gap
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  between the real material cost, the energy, the resources, the
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  ecological damage and the symbolic prices we see in the
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  market. It certainly changes how you
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  look at the price of, well, almost everything it does.
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  Which leads us to a final, quite provocative thought for you, our
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  listener, to chew on. If Hornborg and others are
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  right, if the very viability of our industrial way of life is
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  structurally founded on this unequal material and energy
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  exchange, can we actually achieve global equity, achieve
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  sustainability, just by tweaking the system, you know, changing
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  prices, adding regulations or. Does it require something much
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  more fundamental, perhaps abandoning the core structural
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  imperatives of the industrial system itself?
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  A really profound question about the foundations of our current
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  world order. Something to think about.
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  Definitely. Well, that's all the time we
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  have for this deep dive. Thank you so much for joining
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