 We are at crossroads. That's quite clear from all your future perspectives. We are again at crossroads but how much faith and Why can we have in the present ruling class the people who are now? Our politicians our bankers are we columnist our the media tycoons listen. They are the changemakers, right? So listen and how much can we expect from them parafist you are in your book how to run the world quite Optimistic, I may say when it comes down to humanitarians You talk about me got diplomacy as a way out so give us some hope Well, actually in the spirit of what Ori was saying that book is extraordinarily pessimistic about global structures grand solutions It's it's the anti global governance book about global governance It's the book about the triumph of the local over the global So it's exactly in the spirit of what Rory was saying and I find that you know in our first comments We were quite either or I think that to sort of sum it up None of us wanted to take a position and say that a Technological age is definitely going to be good or bad and I think that that's healthy We nuclear web power can heat homes or it can destroy nations and we know that both potentials still exist And we have to be careful not to conflate Technologies, however, I actually never used the word internet even once in in my opening comments at all And that might have been intentional or otherwise But most people in the world don't have access to the internet most people in the world are starting to get mobile phones Which is but not necessarily the internet this technological diffusion that's happening is itself Not about perfectionism, right? It's just about possibility It's about individual empowerment and I think this gets to your question empowerment with knowledge the ability to be a correction on Authority a correction on elite authority, and this is where the Arab Spring is interesting Of course, you know currently right now as it stands the Egyptian government has not you know is no less hierarchical And you know it does not look like Wikipedia. It is not Networks have not replaced the hierarchical structure of that government That doesn't mean that that networks are not useful tools and challenging hierarchies and in reframing them and in being this Corrective on power and those networks are comprised of those individuals who have experienced a certain kind of empowerment Not purely through technology, but various forms of diffusion of knowledge And I think that's extremely important for us to appreciate that now to the political we haven't I haven't heard all Day, I think the the word that that defines really one of the most secular profound shifts that we're experiencing all over the world That is devolution and devolution is something that is not necessarily rooted in technological change. It's about demographics It's about urbanization. It's about finance, but it's it's certainly about politics It's happening in democracies and in non democracies It's hard to think of a country in the world that isn't experiencing in some way this Fragmentation of iron clad central authority in some way shape or form particularly through the rise of cities the power of mayors the desire of individuals to control their own local politics and budgets and Usage of resource rents and revenues and so forth. I think devolution is extraordinarily important and it redefines the Geographic locus of authority. There are people whether it's in California or in Swiss Contones or in Afghan provinces Most certainly all of India, right? Which we can you know the world's largest democracy is not really run in New Delhi It's run in 25 different state capitals The states are in many profound day-to-day and otherwise ways more powerful than their central government This this devolution is a huge opportunity To bring the politics down to a scale that is more human that is more community that is more local that is more Responsive and I think that that is something that we should be thinking about very much rather than Having a discourse, which is about the elite, which is a category that is in fact too large almost almost infinite to really But at the same time it's a very concrete thing. There is a political elite Financial elite we have People who are running the media We have our public intellectuals and there is a kind of general sense to feel let down by those elites because Quote-unquote The idea is they are they are not accepting their responsibility. Yes, they come together in Davos and they have the Clinton global initiative or whatever, but What essentially comes out of it? so I do think there is At least that's my idea that there is something with this ruling class Which which makes that at least we we probably don't know have no idea what what kind of road today Let me do in half a sense people are ignoring that ruling class you are hoping for a direct challenge in Confrontation to that ruling class rather than witnessing the Reality how can we you know devolution of people simply saying forget Washington forget those least we will do it our own way that that explains things like the rise of community banking Micro-credit and other phenomenon all over the world those that have been ignored by elites or simply Subjects of elites are finding their own ways to self-govern Not always good ways I give you the states that have let the tea party take over their state governments The I think there isn't a kind of illusion that we tend to have that Excuse me the elites that are undoubtedly real Know what they're doing And I think for example the examples that Rory gave which are based in his case on direct personal experience in Afghanistan apply to some extent in the very different conditions of Europe at the moment the idea that by squeezing the countries of Europe At the moment principally the southern countries, but soon the Netherlands and northern Europe To cut back in services to cut back in pensions to cut back in all kinds of things including in Greece for example Anti-malarial sprays have become too expensive It's said it's essential to the future probity and solidarity of Europe that they stop So that malaria will creep back into urban Greece these fantasies as it were are Genuine that's to say it's not the case that the people who have spent all this money in Iraq and Afghanistan And then in Libya and soon perhaps in Syria It's not the case that there is some cynical Machiavellian diabolical plot behind it It's the case that they're genuinely enslaved by a vision of the future and that's my reason at any rate For having my doubts about the capacity of the current elites to resolve these problems because what these problems challenge? Is a vision of the future which is deeply entrenched in their thinking a Vision in which they play a central role with the ideas and beliefs that they have and to strip them of this leaves them Almost Deranged so they're not going to do it. They're going to press on in Europe to the bitter end in Afghanistan I don't know. I'm not an expert eventually. There will be a semi withdrawal probably not complete because the amount of money the financial difficulties in the United States The unpopularity of the war in the United States Etc will force a kind of retreat of some sort But it won't be because the absurdity of the policies has been understood any more than in Europe It'll be because the absurdity of the policies has been understood either and here is my kind of key point I think here I differ profoundly from the idea that what's really creative about political life or human life is attempting the impossible. I Mean there is a kind of idea going, you know, which has been expressed here But it's very very common idea Which is that what is distinctive about the modern world is this the ability to challenge possibility and Attempt things which are impossibility to produce events that are not possible. Well, that's exactly it seems to me What was attempted in Iraq? It was exactly what is being attempted in in in Afghanistan it's exactly what was attempted in the early period in the Soviet Union and Actually, the world as it is with all of its horrors. It's partly a product of these impossible attempts, of course seems to me better than the original Conceptions in many in many in many cases because they involve the destruction of so much. Obviously, there's a lot wrong with traditional Afghan culture, which are a lot that we would object to and that I would certainly regard as As wrong but the idea that it can be restructured reform transformed in it in a decade or a generation It's a complete fantasy. So the real question I have is this Why is this fantasy? I've given part of the answer, but I have to confess it still puzzles me more deeply Why is why is this fantasy so deeply rooted? part of the answer I think is that for many people the fantasy that These that there can be a transformation of whole societies whole cultures can be engineered by regime change or technology or political revolution a Pure a Bolshevik revolution of better global revolution of better more popularly try of distributed technologies It's part of this become part of the meaning of their life They get the meaning of their life from that and so to be deprived of that plunges them into a kind of despair. So Maybe that's something we should start thinking about whether it makes sense to Invest the meaning of one's life in impossible projects Rory you you are as a member of parliament and Inside the political world Do you have arguments why we why we should continue our faith in in in in in in our political process or Well, I think that think the answer is that we have a lot of a lot of reasons not to have faith I mean, I think um It's right as as professor Allen said that that there's something very theatrical and peculiar about modern parliamentary systems I mean, it's true as a British member of parliament that one often feels that one is the the priest of some Dead religion that the rituals that you're going through no longer have any real meaning I mean they once had a historical meaning But but now they're somehow evacuated of meaning and that it's just a ritual and I think are It's true or so that that we feel as we begin become as societies more educated as We know more and more about our own particular spheres. We become more and more aware of the way in which the elites don't We become more and more disappointed by the the lack of knowledge and maybe the lack of virtue The lack of coherence in our elites But the reason I would say there is a reason for hope is that there is a possibility of a more productive form of democratic politics and We can see this a little bit in Britain I mean the the thing that is very striking about a society and this would be true of Holland too, which makes us different From a society of 50 60 years ago is simply that we are just much healthier much more educated much wealthier And the people that I interact with on a day-to-day basis in my constituency. I can have a very very serious engaged conversation with I mean within their own spheres They have extraordinary insights people have very unusual or surprising things to say about Running a business or working in a civil service department or operating as a farmer Which allow you to get into a much more exciting conversation about what's happening in Afghanistan? I mean they understand in other words these problems of abstraction Isolation unscrupulous optimism are as true of their managers and their organizations as they are of the elite International and one of the things that cheers me up a little bit is that in British politics Members of Parliament are being forced to spend more and more time in their constituencies Justifying themselves to the constituents the age of these sort of distant legislators is going I was very shocked I was in Paris earlier this week meeting some French public intellectuals who were saying that There is no need for a British politician to worry about what the people think about Europe This is populism ignore them the point about Europe is it is a it's a vision of solidarity It's a vision of Goethe and molly air and Shakespeare coming together. It's a it's a narrative of globalization There is no alternative to this general progression, right? I I felt very very proud at that point to be a modern politician I felt very proud to be part of a conversation where I have to justify myself to people Where I can't afford to simply talk generally about solidarity and go to a molly air where anything I say has to be pushed through the medium of people in my own constituency my own voters understanding what on earth I'm talking about and being able to relate to it and The thing that we need to change is how to tap that energy how to deal with the fact that in this room Is as much energy as much brains as in any room in Republican Athens and yet nothing's coming of it in the same way. We haven't created the structures to unleash that energy We live very disappointed disappointing lives And one thing I think we need to do is to make people move from the apolitical sphere Where all their energies are going into their family or into their charity work or or into their business Back into the political sphere and at that point you get better elites You get better politicians when you get a better public. We need to be a better public