Synopsis: As the AI revolution gains momentum, a growing resistance movement is pushing back against the proliferation of energy-hungry data centers and big tech projects. Description: An AI revolution is underway, but so is the resistance. People across the country are feeling the strain of the huge energy-sucking data processing centers that AI requires, and telling their elected officials to slow down or stop new big tech projects. John Cassidy and Faiz Shakir say AI expansion is not a red or blue issue; it’s about who controls the technology and who stands to benefit. Guests: • John Cassidy: Staff Writer, The New Yorker; Author, Capitalism and Its Critics: A History: From the Industrial Revolution to AI • Faiz Shakir: Founder & Executive Director, More Perfect Union; Political Advisor & Former Campaign Manager, Senator Bernie Sanders Watch the episode released on YouTube; PBS World Channel 11:30am ET Sundays and on over 300 public stations across the country (check your listings, or search here via zipcode). Listen: Episode airing on community radio (check here to see if your station airs the show) & available as a podcast February 4th, 2026. Full Conversation Release: While our weekly shows are edited to time for broadcast on Public TV and community radio, we offer to our members and podcast subscribers the full uncut conversation. Music Credit: 'Thrum of Soil' by Bluedot Sessions, 'Steppin' by Podington Bear, and original sound design by Jeannie Hopper Support Laura Flanders and Friends by becoming a member at https://www.patreon.com/c/lauraflandersandfriends
Synopsis: Only 17% of Americans think AI will have a positive impact over the next 20 years: Hear from labor-focused news platform More Perfect Union's Founder Faiz Shakir and NYer staff writer John Cassidy on who gets to decide how human and natural resources are distributed in the age of AI capitalism.
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Description: An AI revolution is underway, but so is the resistance. People across the country are feeling the strain of the huge energy-sucking data processing centers that AI requires, and telling their elected officials to slow down or stop new big tech projects for firms like OpenAI, Amazon, Google, Facebook and Microsoft. Data from a 2025 Pew study shows that only 17 percent of Americans think AI will have a positive impact over the next 20 years. But it’s a David vs. Goliath battle. Today’s guests say AI expansion is not a red or blue issue; it’s about who gets to decide how human and natural resources are distributed, who controls the technology, and who stands to benefit. Faiz Shakir is the Founder and Executive Director of the labor-focused news platform More Perfect Union, and serves as a political advisor for Senator Bernie Sanders. John Cassidy, staff writer at the New Yorker, is the author of the recent book, “Capitalism and Its Critics: A History: From the Industrial Revolution to AI”, in which he draws our attention back to the Luddites, the 18th century workers whose revolt deserves our closer attention. Plus, our correspondent’s coverage of a shocking scene at a public comment meeting in Wisconsin when a local woman was arrested and dragged away. If AI is the new face of capitalism, what is the new alternative?
“Luddites, when I was growing up, was a term of abuse. It was people who were sort of antediluvians and didn't understand the modern world. . . . They understood the modern world as it was in their times perfectly, and they saw it was moving against them, and they saw that the political system wasn't coming to their defense.” - John Cassidy
“. . . There's more and more pushback, which hopefully portends the possibility that a lot of these communities can strike better deals if they are going to have data centers. There's no reason why we can't be asking that the teachers are well paid, that the electricity rates don't go up, that we have decent affordable housing in those communities. That is all possible because we're playing with incredible amounts of dollars and deep-pocketed people . . . ” - Faiz Shakir
Guests:
• John Cassidy: Staff Writer, The New Yorker; Author, Capitalism and Its Critics: A History: From the Industrial Revolution to AI
• Faiz Shakir: Founder & Executive Director, More Perfect Union; Political Advisor & Former Campaign Manager, Senator Bernie Sanders
Watch the episode released on YouTube; PBS World Channel 11:30am ET Sundays and on over 300 public stations across the country (check your listings, or search here via zipcode). Listen: Episode airing on community radio (check here to see if your station airs the show) & available as a podcast February 4th, 2026.
Full Episode Notes are located HERE.
Full Conversation Release: While our weekly shows are edited to time for broadcast on Public TV and community radio, we offer to our members and podcast subscribers the full uncut conversation.
Music Credit: 'Thrum of Soil' by Bluedot Sessions, 'Steppin' by Podington Bear, and original sound design by Jeannie Hopper
Support Laura Flanders and Friends by becoming a member at https://www.patreon.com/c/lauraflandersandfriends
RESOURCES:
*Recommended book:
“Capitalism and Its Critics: A History: From the Industrial Revolution to AI” by John Cassidy: *Get the Book
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Featured Clip Credit: America’s Dataland? 1st Amendment Under Attack: There women arrested, produced by Johnathan Klett - Watch the full video
Related Laura Flanders Show Episodes:
• Naomi Klein & Astra Taylor: Are We Entering “End Times Fascism”?: Watch / Listen: Episode Cut and Full Uncut Conversation
• Donna Haraway on Cyborgs, “Oddkin” & Resisting the Monoculture of the Mind: Watch / Listen: Episode Cut and Full Uncut Conversation
• The Lucas Plan at 50: A Radical Investment in Society, Not the War Machine: Watch / Listen: Episode Cut and Full Uncut Conversations- Brian Salisbury and Hilary Wainwright
Related Articles and Resources:
• Small Towns Are Rising Up Against AI Data Centers, “We don’t want to be the next Data Center Alley,” by Joe Wilkins, May 4, 2025, Futurism
• The AI Backlash Keeps Growing Stronger, by Reece Rogers, June 28, 2025, WIRED
• The Dangers of AI and Extreme Wealth Inequality, by David Atkins, January 5, 2026, Washington Monthly
• At least four Wisconsin communities signed secrecy deals for billion-dollar data centers, by Tom Kertscher, January 26, 2026, Wisconsin Watch
• Anti-data center protesters arrested during Port Washington meeting, by Claudia Levens, Jessie Opoien and Francesca Pica, December 3, 2025, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
• How Sam Altman Outfoxed Elon Musk to Become Trump’s AI Buddy, by Keach Hagey, Dana Mattionili and Josh Dawsey, July 17, 2025, The Wall Street Journal
• Curtis Yarvin’s brave new world: we need a corporate dictatorship to replace a dying democracy’ by Boris Munoz, August 19, 2005, El Pais
CHAPTERS:
Unpacking AI Resistance and Guests' Initial Concerns on Oligarchy
00:00:00
Communities Resist the Exploitation of Data Centers
00:03:58
AI's Disruptive Power: From Luddites to Broken Community Compacts
00:07:12
The Shocking Arrest at a Wisconsin Data Center Protest
00:10:34
Understanding the Luddites' Fight Against Technological Disruption
00:13:21
Navigating AI's Political Landscape and Economic Democracy
00:15:51
The Unforeseen Bipartisan Resistance to AI Data Centers
00:19:33
Addressing AI's Environmental Impact and Seeking Alternative Solutions
00:22:13
The Need for Ethical Leadership in the Age of AI
00:25:09
Capitalism's Crossroads: AI, Inequality, and Future Political Paths
00:27:23
Envisioning AI for Public Good and History's Future Judgment
00:31:12
0:00
123.
While our weekly shows are edited to time for broadcast on Public TV and community radio, we offered to our members and podcast subscribers the full, uncut conversation.
These audio exclusives are made possible thanks to our member supporters.
0:24
Donald Trump is on record as saying I love AI, but most Americans don't.
Amid all the hype and the hundreds of billions of dollars invested by big tech firms like Open AI, Amazon, Google, Facebook and Microsoft, protests are happening all over the country as concerned residents tell their political leaders to slow down or back off on developing the massive data processing centers that are required for AI.
0:49
As it stands, around 5400 data centers currently exist in the US.
By 20-30, they're expected to multiply by almost 50%.
But the polls are stark.
There is hardly any issue less popular than unchecked AI development.
1:07
And by contrast, a 2025 Pew study showed that only 17% of Americans think AI will have any positive impact on us over the next 20 years.
It is certainly not the first time that we have seen commoners stacked against oligarchs in a fight over new technology, but it is coming right now at a very particular moment in time.
1:28
So where could all of this go?
Our guests have been watching very closely.
Faas Shakir is the founder and executive director of the online news platform More Perfect Union, some of whose reporting we've just played.
Faas also served as campaign manager for Senator Bernie Sanders 2020 presidential campaign.
1:47
He sees parallels to the fight against NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement.
John Cassidy, staff writer at The New Yorker magazine, is the author of a 2025 book, Capitalism and Its Critics, a history from the Industrial Revolution to AI.
2:03
He's been drawing our attention back to the Luddites, but not in the usual way.
Coming up, our own reporters coverage of a shocking scene at a public comment meeting in peaceful Wisconsin when a local woman was arrested and literally dragged out of the room.
2:20
But first, welcome to both of our guests.
I am so glad to have you here.
I just want to start by settling us by asking you what is what is on your mind?
Who are you thinking about?
What's top of your concerns as we start this conversation?
Taz.
Well, thanks for having us, Laura.
2:36
It's always great to see you right now.
Obviously in the direction of our country, as the president himself has said, is governed by his morals.
And those morals right now as we get into this conversation are governed by a sense of oligarchy, a desire for greed and exploitation, incredible wealth, sense of the high IQ individuals who must be left alone to to run the universe.
2:57
And what you see as a result are not only heinous decisions with ice and heinous decisions with business decisions, but increasingly this out of touchness from regular people trying to just live their regular lives.
And that's what how you get into the data center's conversation of regular people just sensing, do you even know what I am going through?
3:17
And increasingly, the answer is no of the political leadership.
What about you, John?
What's the top of your mind and your heart as we start?
Well, obviously on this day, my, you know, my heart is full of what's happening in Minnesota and Minneapolis in particular.
I don't think anybody who lives in the country can avoid that.
3:34
More generally, I've been concentrating the last few months on Trump's economic policies and their impact in the context of this roiling technological change we're seeing, particularly the rise of AI.
So that, you know, I guess I'm covering political, the political economy more broadly than the economy.
3:54
So it's a sort of intersection of politics and economics in the Trump era.
Well, I'd love you to.
I love that word roiling.
And there's a lot roiling.
And I guess we should forgive any in our audience who haven't been paying attention to these protests around the AI data centers.
It really depends where you live and what media you consume fast.
4:11
We gave people a taste of what you've been reporting on More perfect union.
But how would you describe the the degree of protest?
Well, there's a fleecing of America going on by the oligarchs who want to position and plant a lot of these data centers and communities that they deemed that they can exploit.
4:30
They felt a lot of these rural communities and place like Louisiana, Indiana, Missouri, Arizona, wherever the case might be that they don't have political power, that they can't stand up and stop them.
And as a result, what you have are non disclosure agreements with many of these communities.
4:47
You have them taking electricity and raising rates.
You have them exploiting water and a lot of other land and issues there.
And the communities thankfully are not taking this laying down.
They know what is going on.
And increasingly they've been showing up by the hundreds at local town council meetings.
5:03
And what you give us hope is that that's what democracy is in a sense, that we we have power, economic democracy.
We cannot make these decisions alone, dear oligarchs.
And there's more and more pushback to them, which hopefully portends the possibility that a lot of these communities can strike better deals.
5:18
If they are going to have data centers, there's no reason why we can't be asking that the teachers are well paid in those communities, that the electricity rates don't go up, that we have decent affordable housing in those communities.
That is all possible because we're playing with incredible amounts of dollars and deep pocketed people who want to use and build these data centers.
5:37
You've covered protests in Missouri and Texas.
We've got Wisconsin.
I mean, West Virginia.
I mean, this is red and blue states, right?
Right, Right for us.
Oh yeah, absolutely.
And if you want to put a political lens on, it's actually a lot of conservatives.
It's a lot.
It tilts heavily towards the right here that you're seeing a lot of people working class folks, people without college degrees standing up and saying I don't see the benefit in this.
6:01
And they're not wrong because when you take a look at ChatGPT or Grok and to hooten the benefit of cruise, well, certainly, you know, nice educated set sitting before computers and maybe researching some things that are a little bit easier in their life or checking out how best to, you know, do their next financial investment.
6:18
OK, that sounds fine for you.
But you know, if you're working class person run running through your life in West Virginia or in Pennsylvania, you would be right to say I'm not sure I see the clear benefit and improvement to my life as a result of this coming age.
6:34
Nor do I see people looking out with the lens to say, am I included?
Am I?
Am I beneficiary of the next 10 to 15 to 20 years?
Likewise, coming to you, John, I don't know what it was like living in, you know, Britain in the 1770s, but it's sometimes hard for us who are living through a moment like this to realize what a juncture we are in, technologically speaking.
6:56
You quote people in your book, MIT economists I think, who say this is this digital tech could be as transformative, not as not as mention as disruptive as the steam engine.
How so?
Why is this such an important moment?
Well, I mean, most economists think we're living through the early stages of a new industrial revolution.
7:18
They compare it out of the first industrial revolution that you mentioned in sort of 17th, late 17th, early 18th century Britain, which was based on the steam engine basically, but before that water power.
And what that did basically was displace a whole generation, generation several of skilled artisanal workers in the north of England.
7:41
From a technological perspective, it was it was revolutionary.
From a financial perspective, it was revolutionary because it enabled the rise of factory, factory capitalism.
But so very much as we see today, a lot of people who you know, were on the sharp end of it said what's what's in it for me and what was in it for them.
8:00
And in a lot of places was destitution losing their jobs.
And in several remarkable reports from factory, from parliamentary commissions in the 1820s and 1830s of people actually starving in their cottages in northern England because they'd they'd lost their jobs and there was no welfare, no welfare state then.
8:21
So it's, you know, we've seen technological change before in various junctures and various junctures of history.
But I think what's sort of got economist concerned this time is the sheer scale of this.
8:38
They may be wrong, they may be right, but a lot of a lot of economists and technologists obviously think that this is a, a sort of what they call a general purpose technology, a transformative technology on the scale of nothing we've seen before.
And can I just add to what John is, is, is referencing that for a long period of time, of course, America itself was also beneficiary, what are you referred to as factory capitalism.
9:01
And for a long period of time there has been this compact within America that the sense that if there is going to be major investment from these major corporations called them Ford or even Google, that if they were going to go into a community and source a factory, that there would be benefits to that local community.
9:23
The job jobs would arise at that community.
The the standard of living would rise and generally all downstream a lot of the purveyors of small parts and consumers would benefit.
Now we are at this juncture sad to say that it may be the case that this data centers were talking about when they source a a place and call Louisiana or whatever and they put a data center in there.
9:47
There may indeed be short term job creation of in the construction field.
However, when you look down, you know the next 10 years of the maintenance of such a data facility.
Maybe the first time where you would have hundreds of billions of dollars investment in a community in which the community sees almost none of it.
10:05
Because the jobs will not be long term.
The money is being sucked out of the community, being moved to a different place and location and as a result the people who would benefit most off of it, the wealth creation would be the CE OS suite.
The invest major investors and the shareholders in the local community in which the data centers is housed is actually just been fully exploited.
10:26
And so that I think marks a clear departure from what we had had as a compact for a long period of time in capitalism, that it would be mutually beneficial.
Exploited and environmentally devastated, which is one of the big concerns that was raised at this hearing in Wisconsin that we're going to play a clip of.
Our coverage on.
10:42
This goes back to December 2nd, 2025.
Just last year, citizens at a common Council meeting in a place called Port Washington, beautiful part of the state of Wisconsin.
We're speaking out against a proposed $15 billion data center in that community for Vantage Data Systems, Oracle and Open AI.
11:01
Here's what happened.
The people of Port Washington proudly stand here tonight, united in their belief that the power of their collective voice cannot be silenced.
For months, this mayor and Common Council have ignored the pleas from their constituents to oversee this project with due diligence to assess its impact on Port Washington, Ozaukee County and the incredibly unique Great Lakes region in which we all reside.
11:28
We asked for town halls to allow better communication between the local government and the people, and no action was taken.
People no longer know who to turn to as they are repeatedly cast aside and told their opinions do not matter.
Most leaders would have tabled the issue after receiving public input and providing sufficient notice.
11:49
But you did nothing and you laughed about it.
Shame.
Recall, Recall, recall, recall.
Christine Lejeune of Port Washington, WI with Great Lakes Neighbors United.
12:09
You can hear the applause as she leaves the podium.
She sits down, joins in and chants recall directed at Mayor Ted Nightski.
A police officer then tells her to leave.
12:25
She asks why.
Instead, she's taken to the ground and handcuffed.
Two others who questioned the officer are detained as well, and all three are LED away by police Do.
12:42
Not.
Touch her.
12:55
What do you think?
Do you think the protesters were meriting being arrested and dragged up almost literally by their hair?
Well, that's just one example of the kind of protests that we're seeing around the country that we're talking about here today.
If you haven't been paying attention to what is happening around AI data processing centers in your state, I recommend that you check it out.
13:21
John Cassidy, coming back to you fast, was talking earlier about the kind of requests, demands, expectations that people have had in the past.
They haven't always been met, but it's a good opportunity to remind people that the Luddites didn't just break up machines.
They had ideas that were.
13:37
Yeah, I mean, this sort of struggle over the impact of technology goes back to the very beginning of capitalism.
And the the first major incident of movement was the Luddites in northern England who were skilled artisanal workers.
Hand loom weavers being the most famous ones who worked in their own homes with hand looms rather than factories, came along the power looms, you know, displaced them on mass, not just handling weavers, where they were stocking weavers, all sorts of artisanal workers.
14:06
And their first response, actually Britain wasn't really a democracy at that time because the the franchise was very severely restricted and a lot of these northern towns where the new factories were being built, there was no representation at all.
So Despite that, the first response for the workers wasn't to start smashing things up, it was actually to take some political action.
14:29
And they organized large petitions, which they then presented to Westminster even though they weren't represented there.
But the Westminster Parliament basically did nothing and said, look, this is, you know, just we have to defend property rights.
I did property rights of the of the factory owners.
14:46
We can't do anything for you.
And as things got worse and worse, the workers took it into their own hands and sort of spontaneous mass movement arose, the Luddites and they, they started threatening some factory owners and actually smashed up some of the machinery.
15:04
But as I said, you know, Luddites when I was growing up was a term of abuse.
It was people who were sort of antediluvians and didn't just didn't understand the modern world.
There was actually a lot of logic behind the Luddites actions from their point of view.
They understood the the the modern world as it was in their times perfectly.
15:21
And they saw it was moving against them and they saw that the political system wasn't coming to their defense.
But he spoke about, you know, the famous Treaty of Detroit in post war in America, which helped form the basis of sort of post war social democracy in Keynesianism.
15:37
The history of capitalism through the sort of centuries is that sort of workers and other people coming together to demand rights and sort of balance things out more, and we haven't seen any of that at all so far in AI.
Well, I was going to ask you, Faz, come in on that.
15:53
I mean, you have drawn parallels to the fights around NAFTA, which I I have to remind people weren't won by Labour and the critics of that pact.
And that pact did transform our lives and the lives of people around the world, not in positive ways for the most part.
What makes you think this could be a transformative moment of a, of a different kind?
16:11
And is there any party taking taking advantage of this uproar up this?
Of this protest, Laura, it needs to be a transformative moment certainly at whether politicians rise to the challenge and show integrity and understand what's at stake is a question that remains to be answered.
16:27
We are seeing at least voices speak out of no surprise to any of us that Bernie Sanders been a leading voice of calling for a data center moratorium.
But in addition, on the right, you have had people like Ron DeSantis and Marjorie Taylor Green and a few others express reasonable concerns that their communities are being taken advantage of and that these data centers, by the way, are getting huge tax breaks in order to build these death centers.
16:55
And the community benefit is very little to marginal.
And as a result, I think this next presidential cycle 2028 will be in part a referendum on the direction of AI in this country.
Do you want to see what currently is the path of Donald Trump and those around him and his allies saying that there should just generally be federal preemption?
17:13
That if any major tech company would like to go and conquer any community in America and source and site a data center, they have the right to do so.
No one can stop them unless the king, in this case Donald Trump, would stop that.
17:29
Federal preemption would prevent any local communities from standing up.
And I think now we're in the challenge of hopefully somebody's on the left saying we need economic democracy, Economic democracy, which is showing its face in a beautiful way in Minnesota where you see workers and all kinds of people standing up and say, hey, this community belongs to us.
17:48
And we feel like it should be governed in a certain way.
And we don't want ice here.
That's a wonderful hopefully harbinger of things to come in which we need economic democracy on the data centers issue as well, that communities rise up and say no, we're going to set the terms and the conditions of if you want to come into our communities and extract things from us.
18:07
And I'm hopeful that there will be Democratic politicians who stand with them.
No, I won't be the first person to say, but Elon Musk invested $300 million in the last presidential campaign.
How much do you imagine he'll invest next time around?
I mean, what chances do regular people really have here?
18:23
Yeah, it's not increasingly sadly it's not just Elon because now you've seen open AI, Sam Altman want to get involved politically, seen all the crypto billionaires, the Winklevoss twins, all all kinds of folks who are saying, you know, the stakes for them have increased.
Because as you get increasing oligarchy in America and you have increasing wealth in the in and coupled it with with it, the rise of authoritarianism, that benefits oligarchy because it's easier than to make business decisions.
18:50
If I know that they're a Federal Trade Commission is run by one kind of dictatorial sense of person at the top and that everybody works for him or her, that benefits the business community, at least in the corrupted transactions they would like to make.
19:07
So the fight that we're engaging is actually to devolve power away from the top and actually to give more sense of community to people and to be a grassroots actor at your heart.
Are you somebody who likes to be with workers as they are rising and building unionized work environments and tenant unions and all of the sort?
19:28
If you are that kind of person, this moment is made for you.
I mean, I think one of the surprising things about the current moment, I mean, I've been talking to economists and technologies for years about this stuff.
And I think they, they foresaw that there would be sort of political opposition to the job losses associated with with AI when they came.
19:50
So you saw people like Holman and even Elon Musk trying to get out ahead of that by saying things like, you know, we may need some sort of a Ubi program accompanying the rise of AI or the.
Universal basic income that maybe we'd all get a.
Share of course they never, they never volunteered to pay wealth taxes to finance the Ubi, but whatever.
20:08
But the thing that surprised them and I, and it surprised me to some extent as well, is this sort of pre emptive opposition in the form of this local opposition to the data centers.
I don't think the tech oligarchs and tech Bros really foresaw that at all.
That was just a sort of necessary condition to to, you know, to produce the power to run the computers to do the AI.
20:30
So I think that that sort of local backlash, you know, it is surprising to them.
And especially the fact that Faiz mentioned that, you know, it seems to be bipartisan.
There's opposition in, in, in red and blue areas.
And you're seeing some, you know, Republican politicians speaking out against this, which I think is was entirely unexpected.
20:50
There are some new coalitions and the opportunity for new coalitions are huge because, John, you write about the difference in this moment partly being environmental, not that steam and coal didn't do horrible damage to our environment, but we didn't have a movement about it.
We didn't have language the way that we do today.
Does the environmental kind of clock ticking make a big difference, do you think, in this moment, John?
21:11
Well, I think, you know, it's part of the big data center issue, right?
Of course.
I mean, when when AI was originally advertised a few years ago, I don't think most people realize the immense power demands it would.
It would place on the on the system, not on natural resources.
21:27
On natural resources.
I mean, when you've got, when you got Microsoft restarting a nuclear plant, this is something new in the world.
Three Mile Island, to be clear.
Yeah, exactly.
So you know that it's it's a whole new political economy here, I think, which involves environmental, it involves the impact on workers, it involves the impact on local communities.
21:48
It it is something new in the world.
And people like Bernie Sanders obviously leapt on it early.
But also, you know, as I said, what's more surprising is the, the sort of hesitant attitude of some Republicans here.
I think so the the I, I say that just because the sort of dividing lines in this country are always usually so clear that this may be an issue actually which crosses party lines.
22:13
Now we have.
Seen several billion dollars worth of these data centers actually the blocked or delayed fast.
I mean there is some good news on this front.
And then I do want to pick up on what you raised earlier about what models exist for doing this differently and can the environment actually sustain those?
22:29
Right.
Well, first of all, you're right that there have been communities in Tucson, Indianapolis, St.
Charles, MO, few others who have said no and and increasingly that number is ticking up by the month.
I mean, I think I was seeing some numbers recently that in the last month we've had as many oppositions there have been in this prior six months combined, which is a sense where the momentum is going.
22:51
I just want to also make sure yours also understand that when people are talking about buying and invading Greenland, what is that about?
It is related to data center.
There's mineral extraction in Greenland that is helping to say that that many billionaires would like to facilitate the development of much of their business technology here.
23:11
In addition, you have Bitcoin mining and you have copper mining.
You have all kinds of resource allocations and extractions going on that are related and tangential to the data center development.
A lot of that being environmentally harmful, as you mentioned, Laura.
And I think the way in which one of the ways in which you want to think about solutions is if you are not a crass greedy capitalist like Donald Trump is, and but you were someone who was interested in raising the working class standards of this country, then you were doing, you're doing some of the same tactics with different results.
23:40
So if you were going to take Intel share right, which is he has done or take shares in rare earth mineral companies as he has done or take share in any of these data center development corporations, then I think that those benefits from that should then create a dividend of going back into working class hands.
23:59
That is one way in which you execute some kind of a a share of a worker compact.
But in addition to, I would say that the business, you know that at the end of the day, the government is almost also going to have to get invested in the mission of creating jobs where many are going to be displaced and believing that we need teachers for the future and doctors of the future.
24:19
Many in the AI industry will tell you we don't need any of those people.
And it will be a governmental role to say, no, we actually do because there's a whole swath of lower income middle class workers who are going to be left out in the cold if the rich make the rules and govern the economy of the next 50 years.
24:36
And it will become government's role as a backstop to ensure do 80% of Americans still exist in your mind's eye or not?
This show is made possible by our viewers and listeners, not corporations or advertisers, so join our member supporter on a roll by going to lauraflanders.org/donate to contribute.
25:01
That's lauraflanders.org/donate.
Thank you.
In the on the level of intermediary steps that people could take and governments could take, what are you seeing out there in terms of, I don't know, model legislation or to tackle any of this?
25:21
I mean, I will say where I am, I just recently got hit with a $1000 electricity bill and I've been in the same place using the same amount of power for years.
And I'm not the only person.
I'm in a rural county of New York where this debate around who's using our electricity is raging.
I did see that in New Jersey, Governor Mikey Cheryl has proposed posed a kind of cap on utility rates.
25:42
Is that a sort of a middle step, one that you would like to see more mobilization around furs?
Or is that just delaying the inevitable?
Well, I anticipate President Trump saying in his State of the Union address that is coming up is that I think he will be saying that, oh, I'm stricken a deal with Microsoft and a bunch of other big corporations to say they are going to pay for their own electricity and therefore you, dear citizens, will not have to pay for.
26:08
And I think I want to know.
Whether it happens or not.
I mean, it's a, it's akin to the Ubi conversation we were having before, which is say, do you, dear viewer, believe that Elon Musk who came into government for three or four months and literally brought a blow torch to it and just braised the whole thing and has said, you know, that various citizens of the United States should not even exist.
26:31
They should just be thrown out of this country, whether maybe Somalian or Latino, just thrown out.
So and his arbitrary whim, his morality again, governing and this is the individual that you believe is going to bring about universal healthcare or some universal welfare standards of people to raise all of us up.
26:48
I, I don't it's not going to happen.
We cannot rest on those types of individuals and their ideology.
They have shown their true colors.
And therefore, when you know, Donald Trump comes out and says, hey, you know, don't worry, I'm going to do something that is universally well meaning and well-intentioned for all of you don't believe it.
27:05
You're going to have to have people of a kind of a Bernie Sanders, there's AOC, Zoran, Mandani, people who are shown true integrity in their policy design and their ethic of saying, oh, I look out for all, I care about all.
And therefore the policy designs that might come out of their mouths, you should trust a heck of a lot more.
27:23
Well, we can live and hope.
I, I will say your book, John is both great in that you hear all the critiques and they're so smart and so many roads not taken.
And then you end with, well, maybe somebody will come up with a road taken.
You know, the road that is taken.
Your final chapter is capitalism beginning or ending.
27:40
I mean, which is it?
And what are our options in this moment?
Well, that's obviously, you know, very large question.
I mean, the way I look at it in historical terms is that we're now in a sort of interregnum period.
We had this sort of post war, what I call a managed capitalism, social democracy, and which broke down in in the 1980s basically with the election of Thatcher and Reagan.
28:06
We then had a 30 year experiment in neoliberalism and what I call hyper globalization, which basically sort of let the markets RIP.
That's produced a huge backlash both in the rise of, you know, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren on the on the left of the Democratic Party, but also more ominously, obviously with Trump and right wing economic populism in the US, but also in other places around the world.
28:34
Now the big question now is where does he go from here?
Which of these rival visions, you know, he's going to, he's going to win out and it's taking place when we've got another huge disruptive force, AI coming into effect.
And it seems to me there are various sort of, you know, options out there, One of which is whatever you think of Donald Trump, he's got a very clear option.
28:55
He's got a very clear policy out there.
Economic nationalism throughout the immigrants, protect American businesses.
America first.
Let the let the sort of oligarchs, you know, rebuild the economy on the left.
I think it's unclear what the options are.
29:12
We're still sort of groping towards them there.
Obviously, if AI is going to produce a huge distribution of well, I mean, sorry, Mal distribution even more than we see now, there's going to have to be some sort of socialization of the AI wealth.
29:28
How is that going to take place?
Is it going to be as Faiz was taking was suggesting with the government taking stakes in some of these AI companies?
Is it going to be through a capital, a tax on capital of the, the, the thought that Thomas Picardy, you know, proposed 1015 years ago, We just somebody's got to come come up with a sort of winning program which can appeal to working people, middle income people.
29:56
And one of the crazy things which we may face is if AI is all that it's promoters are cracked up to be, the Luddites of the future could be middle class professionals because it looks like the people it's going to target most, you know, most directly are people like doctors, lawyers, a computer programmers, etcetera.
30:14
Are we going to have a radicalized sort of upper middle class?
That's another new, another new form of political economy that we that we haven't seen.
So as I said, I think we're in this interregnum period where there's a great deal of plasticity in the system and, you know, things could go horribly wrong.
30:29
I mean, let's, let's not beat about the Bush here.
We've got the sort of Spectra of some sort of American fascism out there on the streets at the moment.
So luckily there is a, you know, a great wave of popular reaction against it.
I think that that is encouraging.
30:46
And you're even starting to see, I think, some break in the sort of Republican coalition behind it, some mostly local governors and congressmen, etcetera, starting to speak out of against the sort of, you know, ice on the streets.
I think that that's encouraging, but we need, I think a, you know, a big discussion on the left and the center left about what's the alternative paradigm that we've got to offer in this new age.
31:12
It is kind of extraordinary.
You alluded to of us, you know, the President Trump buying up these shares in private companies.
If Bernie Sanders was president and he was doing it, people would be screaming this is state socialism and how evil, but somehow Trump is getting away with it.
31:28
If it wasn't about the private profit aspect, if somehow this was a publicly owned business or maybe democratized or localized, you'd still have the environmental challenges, but certainly more incentive for local communities to solve them.
Is that a sort of picture that you're seeing put forward by anyone out there?
31:51
No, it's been a struggle so far.
Hopefully.
OK, well, we're helping.
We're trying to help.
After this show, just wait.
Yeah, and we've been largely critical of AI, the conversation so far.
But if, you know, we represent that there could be potentially benefits to some AI implementation.
32:07
One of them actually could result in us having better senses of how to decrease carbon in the atmosphere.
I would not surprise, right that we could come up with innovative technological solutions to get a carbon out.
Also like taxing the rich is something that I really wanted to do.
32:24
So what time would wouldn't it be wonderful if an AI helped us generate a good clean audit of where, who should be paying what and how much?
I mean, there are you could conceive of ways in which particularly a government led by good ethics and good integrity, utilizing some of the advanced knowledge and resources to say, well, we're going to work on behalf of the American public and get a better outcomes for you.
32:46
That said, it's so hard for us to conceive of that because we are mired in corruption all around us.
We have not for the past, you know, decades seen government officials operate with the integrity that is required to say that every day I'm going to come in, be willing to stand up against the most powerful in society, be willing to not accept their campaign contributions, not listen to their lobbyists, not get deluded and deceived by their misinformation.
33:11
And yet keep grounded that my at my end goal, my end result is to improve the lives of the vast majority of people in this country.
The greatest good for the greatest number.
That is what governs me to this day, right.
And I we are hunting.
We are seeking those types of people because it is required.
33:28
If you can get that integrity in public service, I think you can then actually fashion the world in which we would stand up to AI in the proper and appropriate ways.
And actually prosper some of its development for beneficial uses.
Well, our audience have heard me say this before.
I will say it again.
33:43
I believe, I want to believe.
I'm determined to believe that it is possible.
But I, I'm afraid we're running out of time.
I want to ask you the questions we ask all of our guests at the end of these episodes.
And that is what you think actually is the story that the future will tell of this moment when, when there's a John Cassidy of the future John writing the next, you know, volume of capitalism's critics.
34:05
What will they say about us now?
Well, I think that, you know, that's left for us to determine, right?
I mean, if you look at the history of of capitalism, one thing that comes out very clearly is that it, it's not, it's not stuck in status.
It's always changing.
And, and the one of the forces that changes it is politics, not just technology.
34:24
Technology doesn't exist in a vacuum.
You look at the history of the industrial revolution.
It gave rise to it.
It produced some terrible it effects immediately, but over the decades it gave rise to the to the growth of labour unions, to the growth of factory legislation, to the growth of the welfare state.
34:43
There's always, you know, a reaction against it.
And I think you know, the the future's, you know, it's a cliche.
Obviously the future's there to be created.
The the idea of democratizing AI which phase started this whole conversation with is I think, you know, a very powerful one which can form a sort of framework around which, you know, I think a a very large coalition of voters could could be mobilized.
35:10
What about you Faz?
What will they say about us?
Maybe 2550 years hence.
We are living with greater wealth and income inequality, as you know, and I worry that there's a magnetic pole of the top 10% essentially that more and more conversation revolves around them, their desires, their interest, their business efforts, and it starts to disassociate from the sixty 7080%.
35:33
We're living a completely different life and our challenge in this moment, and I think history will tell, is how are they doing?
How was the how are the sixty 7080% of people feeling and were they disregarded and then did the people see that there was a rebellion for fomenting in their midst and or did they just look the other way And that I think it we're in that critical moment was what do the vast majority of Americans here and people around the world use as their collective power and to to register a voice of disagreement, opposition, and where does that lead?
36:08
That, I think, is what history will record as we go about it.
Well, you're certainly putting up a good alternative to that magnetic pull of the oligarchs with more perfect union.
Thank you so much for your reporting in your work.
It is critically important.
John, thank you for your book.
I I appreciate your time, both of you here on Laura Flanders in France.
36:25
Thank you.
Thank you.
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36:41
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