Lex Fridman PodcastCenk Uygur: Trump vs Harris, Progressive Politics, Communism & Capitalism | Lex Fridman Podcast #441
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,040 words- 0:00 – 2:03
Introduction
- CUCenk Uygur
Communism makes no sense at all, totally opposed to human nature. It never works. It always devolves into dictatorship. It creates a power vacuum. When you say, "Hey, there's no structure of power here," right, "We're all equal, it's a flat line," one guy usually gets up, because that's human nature, and goes, "Uh, I don't think so. I think if you're gonna leave a power vacuum, I'm gonna take that power vacuum." Corporatism hates competition. It wants monopoly and oligopoly power, whereas capitalism loves competition and wants the free markets. When mainstream media has you hooked, you got no hope, because you don't have the right information. You have propaganda. You have marketing. You don't have real news. When you're in the online world, it's chaotic. And don't get me wrong, it's got plenty of downsides, right? But within that chaos, the truth begins to emerge. Trump is a massive risk because of all the things we talked about earlier, but there is a percentage chance that he's such a wild card that he overturns the whole system, and that is why the establishment is a little scared of him.
- LFLex Fridman
The following is a conversation with Cenk Uygur, a progressive political commentator and host of The Young Turks. As I've said before, I will speak with everyone, including on the left and the right of the political spectrum, always in good faith, with empathy, rigor, and backbone. Sometimes I fail. Sometimes I say stupid, inaccurate, ineloquent things, and I frequently change my mind as I'm learning and thinking about the world. For all this, I often get attacked, sometimes fairly, sometimes not. But just know that I'm aware when I fall short and I will keep trying to do better. I love you all. This is the Lex Fridman Podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, here's Cenk Uygur.
- 2:03 – 8:12
Progressivism
- LFLex Fridman
You wrote a book-
- CUCenk Uygur
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
... a manifesto that outlines the progressive vision for America. So, the big question, what are some defining ideas of progressivism?
- CUCenk Uygur
Yeah. So in order to do that, Lex, we gotta, uh, talk about where we are in the political spectrum. And, uh, in fact, there's two different, uh, spectrums now. People often think of left-right, uh, and that's true. That exists. But layered on top of that is now populist versus establishment. So I'm center-left on the left-right spectrum, um, but I'm all the way on the populist end of, of the second spectrum.
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- CUCenk Uygur
So where does progressivism lie within that? Well, uh, I would argue that it's exactly in those places. It's populist, uh, and it's on the left, but it is not far left. So far left is a different animal, uh, and we could talk about that i- in a little bit. So in terms of what makes a progressive, so expand the circle of liberty and, uh, justice for all and equality of opportunity. Now, people will say, "Well, that seems pretty broad and all American," but is it? Think about it. So expand the circle of liberty. Uh, everybody's in favor of that, right? No, absolutely not. So, uh, certainly the king of England was not in favor of expanding the circle of liberty, and the Founding Fathers said, "We're gonna expand it." And they expanded it to propertied white men, and then progressives have been inc- They are progressives because they expanded the circle of liberty. They then, from then on, as we were perfecting the union, progressives always say expand it further, include women, include people without property, include all races, and at every turn, conservatives fight against it. So that doesn't mean if you're a conservative today, you don't wanna include women or, uh, minorities, et cetera. But, but today, you would say, for example, "Well, I don't wanna expand the circle of liberty to, for example, undocumented immigrants." And maybe you're right about that and we could have that d- discussion in terms of a specific philosophy. And I don't believe that undocumented immigrants should immediately be citizens or anything along those lines, but I do believe in expanding liberty overall, and the contours of that are what's interesting. And then you say justice for all, everybody's for just- No. Right now, marijuana possession is still illegal in a lot of parts of the, uh, country. Now a lot of right-wingers and left-wingers agree that it should be legal, but for my entire lifetime, uh, Black people have been arrested at about 3.7 times the rate of white people, and the entire country has been fine with it. So does that justice? No. They smoke... White people, Black people smoke marijuana at the same rate. Black people get arrested about four times the rate. That is an injustice that an enormous percentage of the country was comfortable with, while progressives aren't comfortable with it. We want justice for all. So the equality of opportunity is an interesting one because the far left will say, s- at least some portions of them will say equality of results, right? So progressives just want a fair chance, so free college education, but afterwards, you don't get to have exact same results as the, either the wealthiest person or we're not all going to be equal. We don't have equal talents, skills, abilities, et cetera.
- LFLex Fridman
There's a lot of questions I can ask there. So on the circle of liberty, yes, so expanding the number of people whose freedoms are protected, but what about the magnitude of freedom for each individual person? So, uh, expanding the freedom of the individual and protecting the freedoms of an individual. It seems like progressives are more willing to expand the size of government where government can do all kinds of regulation, all kinds of controls on the individual.
- CUCenk Uygur
So Lex, what we're probably gonna talk about a lot today is balance.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- CUCenk Uygur
And so, uh, a lot of people think, "Oh, I, I'm on the right, I'm on the left," and that comes with a certain preset ideology. So the right is always correct, the left is always correct. So there's two problems with that. Number one-How could you possibly believe in a preset ideology if you're an independent thinker? It's literally, by definition, not possible. If you say I lent my brain to an ideology that was created 80 years ago or eight years ago or 800 years ago, and I'm not gonna change it, you're saying I don't think for myself. I, you know, I bought into a culture, and by the way, there's a lot of different forms of culture you could buy into, religion, politics, sometimes, uh, racial, etcetera. So that's why you need actually balance. The second reason you need balance, other than independent thought, is because the answers are almost never black and white, and that gets into a really interesting nuance, because mainstream media, in my opinion is The Matrix, and its job is to delude you into thinking corporate rule is great for you, and we should never change it, and the status quo is wonderful. So they have created a false middle. W- what mainstream media calls moderate is actually, in my opinion, extremist corporate ideology. So for example, they'll say Joe Manchin is a moderate. None of his positions are moderate, other than potentially gun control in West Virginia. He's not for gun control. The people of West Virginia are not for gun control, generally speaking. So, and he uses that, and they usually have these shiny objects where they're like, "You see this? I'm a moderate because of guns, or I'm a moderate because I'm a Democrat from West Virginia." But wait, let's look at your positions. You're against paid family leave. That polls at 84%. So you're a radical corporatist who say that women should be forced back into work the day after they have birth. You're against a higher minimum wage. You're against... Y- you're for every corporate position, and they all poll at 33% or less. So Joe Man- Manchin is not at all a moderate, and this applies to almost every corporate Republican and every corporate Democrat. They're all extremists in, in supporting what I call corporatism. So you have to get to a balance in order to get to the right answer.
- LFLex Fridman
So that's an interesting
- 8:12 – 23:00
Communism
- LFLex Fridman
distinction here. So you're actually, as far as I understand, pro capitalism.
- CUCenk Uygur
Yes.
- LFLex Fridman
Which is an interesting place to be. That's the thing that probably makes you center-left, and then still populist, is you're- you're full of, uh, beautiful contradictions, let's say this, which will be great to untangle. But what's the difference between corporatism and capitalism? Is there a difference?
- CUCenk Uygur
Yeah, so I- I really believe in capitalism. I- I don't think that there's really a second choice. Um, the in- where it gets super interesting is the distinction between capitalism and socialism, because that's not at all as clear as people think it is, and people often say socialism and communism as synonyms when they're not synonyms, right? And so I view it as there's basically four distinct areas. It's obviously a spectrum. Everything is a spectrum, right? On one end, you have communism on the left, and on the other end, you have corporatism on the right, okay? And I would argue that capitalism is in the middle. And so communism, we know, uh, s- state owns all property. You're not allowed to have private property. So I will piss off a lot of people in this show-
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- CUCenk Uygur
... and so I'm asking for their patience. Please hear me out, and because don't worry, I'm gonna piss off the other side too.
- LFLex Fridman
Okay.
- CUCenk Uygur
Okay? (laughs) So communism makes no sense at all, totally opposed to human nature. It never works. It always devolves into dictatorship because it is not built for human nature. It- we're never going to act like that. It's not in our DNA. You could try to wish it into existence, and they have, and it never works, and it's because once you have almost no rules in terms of, uh, oh, we're all equal, uh, even though communism eventually winds up having an enormous amount of rules, right? Uh, it creates a power vacuum when you say, "Hey, there's no structure of power here, right? We're all equal. It's a flat line." One guy usually gets up because that's human nature and goes, "Uh, I don't think so. I think if you're gonna leave a power vacuum, I'm gonna take that power vacuum."
- LFLex Fridman
That's actually a really interesting way to put it, 'cause when everyone is equal, nobody is in power, and human nature is such that there's everybody's- that there's a will to power, so when you create a power vacuum, somebody's going to, to fill it. So the alternative is to have people in power, but there's a balance of power, and then there's like a democratic system that elects the people in power and keeps churning and rotating who's in power.
- CUCenk Uygur
That is exactly it, Lex. You got it exactly right, in my opinion. Okay? So that's why communism never works and can never work. So they, i- it's an idea of, like, we're all gonna work as hard as we possibly can and take only what we need.
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- CUCenk Uygur
Where? When? When has that ever happened in the history of humanity, right? We're just not built that way. So okay, we can get into that debate with my friends on the left, etcetera. Now, corporatism is just as extreme and just as dangerous, and that is basically what we have in America now. What we have in America now, and this is another giant trick that The Matrix played on everybody, that they s- they did a shell game, and all of a sudden, extreme corporatists like Manchin and almost every Republican in the Senate are moderates. Oh my God, Mitch McConnell all of a sudden is a moderate, and uh, e- etcetera, as long as you're not a populist. Populists are never moderate, okay? But if you love corporations and corporate tax cuts and everything in favor of corporations, you're magically called a moderate when you actually, according to the polling, have super extreme positions that the American people hate, and by the way, that's part of the reason for the rise of Trump. We can come back to that, okay? But the second shell game is taking out capitalism, putting in corporatism, but still calling it capitalism. Okay, so what is corporatism? It is when, uh, corporations slowly take over the system and create monopoly and oligopoly power. So that snuffs out equality of opportunity. So how do they do that? Uh, when people say the- the system is rigged...... they oftentimes can't explain it that well, and then mainstream media goes, "Oh, you sound conspiratorial." (laughs) "Rigged, yeah, I wonder how?" Yeah, super easy to explain it. Here's one of dozens of examples. Carried-interest loophole. So that is for hedge funds, private equity, the s- the top people on Wall Street. They're... That's part of their income. They get two and 20, right? So 2% is a flat fee, no matter what happens to the fund, and 20% of the profits of the fund goes back to the people who invested it. It's not their money, it's not their investment. Uh, what they're getting is actually just income. It should be taxed at the highest rate. But in sp- because of this loophole, it's taxed at a much lower rate, at around 20%. So do you know at what income level you go above 20% if you're a regular Joe? It's at $84,000 a year. So these billionaires are getting the same tax rate as people making $84,000 a year. It's unbelievably unfair, uh, and that's corporatism taking over and starting to rig the rules. I'm gonna pay less taxes, you're gonna pay more taxes, okay? So again, I can give you dozens of those examples. So... And m- mergers so that they get to oligopoly power. That's how you rig a system. Lowering the corporate tax rates. Making sure that there is no, uh, real minimum wage. Making sure there's no universal healthcare. We all get... Become indentured servants of corporations. They take away power from the average guy, give it to the most powerful people in the world. So... And... But the most important distinction, Lex, is that corporatism hates competition. It wants monopoly and oligopoly power, whereas capitalism loves competition and wants the free markets. And I remember, uh, you know, we started Young Turks back in 2002, so we've been around for 22 years. Longest-running daily show on the internet ever. Uh, and so we were be-... Pre-Iraq War, and the Iraq War starts and Dick Cheney starts handing out no-bid contracts. I'm like, "What part of capitalism is a no-bid contract?" You can't negotiate drug prices. (laughs) That's the most anti-free market thing I have ever heard. It's almost like communism for corporations. They get everything, you g- they're, it, it, and they're... You get nothing, right? So it's, it's preposterous, it's awful and, and it kills the free markets and it's killing this country, and it is the main ideology and religion of the establishment.
- LFLex Fridman
Are all companies built the same here? So when you say corporatism, uh, it seems like, just looking here at the list of, uh, by industry, uh, lobbyists, it seems like there's certain i- industries that are worse offenders than others, like pharmaceuticals, uh, like insurance, oil and gas.
- CUCenk Uygur
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
So it seems to me, uh, it feels wrong to just throw all companies into the same bucket of, like, they're-
- CUCenk Uygur
No.
- LFLex Fridman
... all guilty.
- CUCenk Uygur
No, they're not all guilty. So let's make a bunch of distinctions here. So first of all, uh, can you... First of all, are they, quote unquote, guilty? No, they're doing something that is logical and natural, right? So if you're a company, do you wanna pay higher taxes or lower taxes? Of course you wanna pay lower taxes, right? Do you wanna have higher employee costs or lower employee costs? Of course you want lower employee costs, right? So... But the government needs to understand that and protect us from that power that they are going to exercise to get to those results. And if you s- if you think free markets is there is no government, you, you read it wrong. Go ba- re- go back and reread Adam Smith. He says, "You must protect against monopoly power. If you do not protect against monopoly power, you will have no free markets." And he's absolutely right. So the s- second distinction is between small business and big business. That's why Republicans will always be like, "Oh, we're doing this for small business. That's why we got the biggest oil companies in the world, $30 billion in subsidies." What happened to small business, right? So I run a small business, and so if people were to say, like, "Hey, uh, maybe there should be exemptions for some of the regulations if your company has less than five employees, 10 employees, 50 employees, et cetera," there's some logic in that. 'Cause businesses have different stages of growth, and they have different interests and different needs in those stages of growth. And we wanna facilitate small business growth, because that's great for the economy, that's great for, uh, markets, freedom, et cetera. But the bigger corporations, even there, there's a third distinction. It isn't that there's certain industries that are worse. There's just that there are industries that are better at lobbying. So anyone who... Like right now, number one donor in Washington. A lot of people make a mistake. They think it's AIPAC or they think it's the oil companies or the banks. No, it's Big Pharma, okay? And who has the most power in this country? Big Pharma. So we can't even negotiate the drug prices. I mean, look guys, think about it this way. That's like saying, "Okay, here's a bottle of water." And normally in the free market that would cost about a dollar, right? And then the, uh, for Medicare, the drug companies come in and go, "No, I'm not charging a dollar for that water. I'm charging a hundred dollars." And the governments has to say, "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. Of course, sir. We'll pay a hundred dollars." That's the mo- that's l- that's why it gets compared to communism, because I can't imagine anything more diametrically opposed to the free market than you, the consumer, have to pay whatever the hell a corporation charges. That's insanity, let alone the patents, let alone the fact that the American people pay for the research and then they make billions of dollars off of it and we get nothing but robbed by them. So it's about lobby power. Oil companies have huge lobby power. Defense contractors h- have huge lobby power. It's not that they're more evil, it's just that they have figured out the game better and they have...... basically taking all the influence they need to capture the market, capture the government, and, and snuff out all competition.
- LFLex Fridman
Well-
- CUCenk Uygur
Or a lot of competition.
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs) Uh, figured out the game better. So I think a lot of companies are good at winning the right way, by building better products, by, um, you know, making people happier with the work they're, they're doing, and the winning of the game of capitalism. And then there's other companies that win at the game of lobbying, and I just wanna sort of draw-
- CUCenk Uygur
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
... that distinction, 'cause I think it's a small subset of companies that are playing the game of lobbying, so Big Pharma-
- CUCenk Uygur
So let's, uh, first of all, you have to set rules for what makes sense, not, "Oh, I don't like this industry," or, "I don't like this company," or, "Hey, this company's not doing that much lobbying at this point." They will later, when they realize what's going on. So for example, in my opinion, AIPAC has totally bought almost all of Congress, and so now other countries are gonna wake up and go, "Wait, you can just buy the American government?" So AIPAC is gonna spend about $100 million in this cycle, and they're gonna... And then they're getting 26 billion back. So every country in the world is soon gonna realize, oh, take American citizens that live there, get them a tremendous amount of money, and just buy the US government, right? So that, but for corporations, they've already realized that on a massive scale, right? So for example, uh, in the two industries you gave, automotive. So in New Jersey, about a decade ago or so, one of the most powerful lobbies is, uh, car dealerships. So at the national level, you got pharma and you've got defense contractors, et cetera. At the local level, guys who have huge power, number one is utilities, number two is real estate, and then car dealerships are hilariously among the top, right? Because it's local businesses that are, you know, financing the politicians at the local level. So, they passed a law, uh, saying that, uh, you have to sell through dealerships, but Tesla doesn't sell through dealerships, and it was intended to bully, intimidate, and push out Tesla out of the market. They then did that in a number of different states throughout the country. So does that make any sense in a democracy? Of course not. Why? You could just... Why do you have to sell your product through a specific vehicle or medium? You could sell it any way you like. That's the most anti-free market thing possible. Why? It was just total, utter corruption. And, but it's not, but it's perfectly legal. The Supreme Court legalized bribery. So then what happened in that case? So then Elon came in and gave cam- campaign contributions and reversed it. So now we're in a battle where it's an open auction, right? Different companies are buying different politicians (laughs) and, and then they're pretending to have debates about principles and ideas, et cetera. So now let's look at tech. Um, in the beginning, Facebook was not spending any money in politics, or almost any money in politics. So what happens? They're getting hammered. They're getting pulled into congressional hearings, and Facebook's got fake news and, oh my God, all this trouble from Facebook. Then Facebook does the logical thing, "Oh, it turns out I need to grease these sons of bitches." Okay. So then they hire a whole bunch of Republican consultants. They go grease all the Republicans and most of the corporate Democrats, and then all of a sudden, we're no longer talking about Facebook at all, and Facebook are angels, and now we've turned our attention to who? Facebook's top competitor, TikTok. Funny how that works.
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- CUCenk Uygur
Okay? (laughs) And by the way, then Donald Trump goes, "Oh, uh, TikTok's a big dangerous company, they're working with China." Okay? And then Jeff Yass comes in in this cycle, part owner of TikTok, and he doesn't want TikTok banished, of course, right? So he gives Trump a couple of million dollars. Trump turns around the next day and goes, "We love TikTok. TikTok's a good company," right?
- LFLex Fridman
So that's a big contributor to, uh, influencing what politicians say and what they think, but it's not the entire thing, right?
- CUCenk Uygur
No, it is. It's 98%. I'll go on mainstream media and they'll be like, "Oh, I see what you're saying. I c- I can see how that influences politicians about 10%." (laughs) I'm like, "No, no, it's 98%". So, and even fif- p- a lot of good people think it's 50/50.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- CUCenk Uygur
They have principles and they have money. No, they have money and this major principles. That's why I wanted to clarify 98 too.
- 23:00 – 29:03
Capitalism
- LFLex Fridman
do we fix it? So it's really interesting and nice that you're pro capitalism and anti-corporatism. So how do we create a system where, uh, the free market can rule, where capitalism can rule, we c- we can have these vibrant flourishing of all these companies competing against each other and creating awesome stuff?
- CUCenk Uygur
Yeah. Uh, so i- in the book, I call it Democratic capitalism, as opposed to Bernie's Democratic socialism. Right? We can get into that distinction in a minute. But, um, so a- as Adam Smith said, and anyone who studies, uh, capitalism knows, you need the government to protect the market as well as the people. Because, so, like, why do we have cops? Because if we don't have cops, somebody's gonna go, "Well, I like Lexus cou- equipment. Why don't I just go into his house and take it?" Right? So you need the cops to protect you, and that's the government. So people say, "Oh, I hate o- big government." Do you? Right? It depends, right? If your house is getting robbed, all of a sudden you like the government, but you also need cops on Wall Street, because if you allow insider trading, the powerful are gonna rob you blind and the little guy is gonna get screwed. So that's this easy example. And so if you don't have those cops, the bad guys are gonna take over, they're gonna set the rules, rig the rules in their favor. So tha- that's why you need regulation. And so b- the Republicans, on purpose, made regulation a dirty word. They're like, "Oh, oh, regulation is bad." And, and then sometimes on the left, people fall for the trap of, "All regulation is good." A guy I like and, um, has a great analogy on this, Matt Stoller. He's one of the original, I would a- argue, progressives, and there's about four of us. I'm sure there's more, but...... that have stayed true to the original meaning of progressivism and populism, me, Matt Stoller, David Sirota, Ryan Grim. Okay? And they... it used to be, in that original blogger group, there was guys like Glenn Greenwald and other interesting cats, right? But they went in different directions. So Matt has a great line. He says, um, "If somebody comes up to you and says, 'How big a pipe do you want?' There is no answer for that. It depends on the job, doesn't it?" Right? What are we doing? What are we building? I, I'm gonna tell you the size of the pipe depending on the project. So when people say, "Are you in favor of regulation or against it?" that's an absurd question. Of course you need regulation. It just means laws, right? So "Don't kill your neighbor" is a regulation, right? (laughs) So, uh, my idea is a simple one and one we're gonna keep coming back to: balance. So when my dad was a small business owner in New Jersey, uh, he... and they inspected the elevators six times a year, that was over-regulation. And I said to my dad, "So should they not inspect it at all?" I'm a young kid growing up. And he said, "Oh, no, no. You got to inspect it at least twice a year." I said, "Why?" He said, "'Cause in Turkey, sometimes they don't inspect it and then the elevator falls." (laughs) okay? So, so bounds of reason, correct regulation to protect the markets, and to protect the American people.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah, but finding the right level of regulation, especially in, for example, in tech, something I'm much more familiar with, is very difficult. Because, uh, people in Congress are living in, in the 20th century, before the internet was, uh, uh, invented. So, like, uh, how are they supposed to come up with regulations?
- CUCenk Uygur
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
That's the idea of the free market, is you should be able to sort of compete... The market regulates. And then the-
- CUCenk Uygur
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
... go- government can step in and protect, uh, the market from forming monopolies, for example, which is easier to do.
- CUCenk Uygur
Yeah, but that's a form of regulation.
- LFLex Fridman
Right. But then there's, like, more checking the elevator twice a year.
- CUCenk Uygur
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
That's a more sort of specific watching, micromanaging.
- CUCenk Uygur
So Lex, here's the deal. Y-... there's no way around the l- the laws are made by politicians. Okay?
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- CUCenk Uygur
So, and so you can't give up then and go, "Oh, it's a bunch of schmucks who..." Uh, I think most politicians are just servants for the donor class. All right? The, you know, the media makes it sound like they're the best of us. "Oh, they deserve a lot of honor and respect," and they kiss their ass, et cetera. I think generally speaking, they're usually the worst of us, especially in this corporatist structure, right? Because they're the guys who, uh, their number one talent is, "Yes, sir. No, sir. What would you like me to do with your donor money, sir? Absolutely, I'll serve you completely, or 98%," right? So in this structure, the politicians are the worst of us. But at some point, you need somebody elected to be your representative to do democratic capitalism so that you have capitalism but it's checked by the government on behalf of the people. It's the people that are saying, "These are the rules of the land and, and you have to abide by them." So the... how do you get to the best possible answer? And... which is related to an earlier question you asked, Lex, which is y-... the number one thing you have to do is get big money out of politics. Everything else is near impossible as long as we are drowned in money, and whoever has more money wins. And by the way, when it comes to legislation, again, that's true about 98% of the time. Like, we predict things ahead of time. People are like, "Wow, how did you know that that bill wasn't gonna pass or was gonna pass?" It's the easiest thing in the world. And we, like, literally tr-... like, teach our audience on The Young Turks, "Watch, you'll be able to see for yourself." And now, like, our members comment in. They do these predictions. They're almost always right. Right? Because it's so simple. Follow the money. So if you get big money out of politics, and I'll could explain how to do that in a sec, um, then you're at a place where you got your best shot at honest representatives that are going to try their best to get to the right answer. Are they gonna get to the right answer out of the gate? Usually not. So they pass a law. There's something wrong with the law. They then fix that part. They... it's a pendulum. You know, you don't want it to swing too wildly, but you do need a little bit of oscillation in that pendulum to get to the right balance.
- 29:03 – 33:49
Corruption
- CUCenk Uygur
- LFLex Fridman
By the way, I w- I was, uh, listening to, uh, Joe Biden from when he was, like, 30 years old, his speeches. He was eloquent as hell.
- CUCenk Uygur
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
It's fun to listen to, actually. And he has a speech he gives, or just maybe a conversation in Congress, I'm not sure where, where he talks about how corrupt the whole system is.
- CUCenk Uygur
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
And he t-... and he's really honest and, like, fun and, uh... that Joe Biden's great, by the way. That guy (laughs)
- CUCenk Uygur
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
... I mean, age, age sucks. You know, people get older. But he was talking quite honestly about, like, having to suck up to all these, uh, rich people and that he couldn't really suck up to the really rich people. Uh, uh, they said, uh, "Come back to us, uh, 10 years later when you're, like, more, more integrated into the system." But he was really honest about it. He's saying that's, um, that's how it is, that's what we have to do, and that really sucks that that's what we have to do.
- CUCenk Uygur
Yeah. So we did a video on our TikTok channel, thenandnowjoebiden.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- CUCenk Uygur
This is when I was trying to push Biden out.
- LFLex Fridman
We should say you're one of the people early on saying Biden needs to step down.
- CUCenk Uygur
Yeah. I started about a year ago 'cause I was positive that Biden had a 0% chance of winning. (laughs) And, uh, and it turned out... by the way, uh, two days before he dropped out, his inside advisors inside the White House said, yeah, near 0% chance of winning.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- CUCenk Uygur
So we were right all along.
- LFLex Fridman
You got a lot of criticism for that, by the way, but yeah.
- CUCenk Uygur
Yeah. Well, we can come back to that.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- CUCenk Uygur
Yes, I did. And which makes it Tuesday for me. Uh (laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah, sure.
- CUCenk Uygur
I get a lot of criticism for everything. Uh, t-... and by the way, Democratic Party, you're welcome.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- CUCenk Uygur
Uh (laughs) ... (laughs) So... But, uh, Biden's a really interesting example. I'm really glad you brought it up. So the video on TikTok was just showing Biden then, Biden now. And, and you're right, Biden was so dynamic. When you see how dynamic he was, we did like side-by-side, right? And then you see him now going like, "Uh, (murmurs) anyways..." Right? You're like, "Oh, that's not the same guy. I get it." Right? So... And that got like five million views because we're- because it resonates. They're like, "Yeah, yeah, of course!" Right? But when he first started, to the point you were making, Lex, he, one of... In fact, I know 'cause I talked to him about this, uh, his very first bill was anti-corruption. Why? 'Cause at that point, everything changes in 1976 to '78, the Supreme Court decisions that basically legalized bribery. But remember, Biden is ancient. So he's coming into politics at a time when money has not yet drowned politics. And in fact, the American population's super pissed about the fact that it's begun. They don't like corruption. So early Biden, because he's reading the room, is very anti-corruption. Mm-hmm. And the first bill he proposes is to get money out of politics, okay? But as Biden goes on for his epic 200-year career in Washington, he starts to get, not more conservative, more corporate, because he's just taking more and more money. By the middle of his career, he has a nickname, the senator from MBNA, okay? Mm-hmm. MBNA was a credit card company based in Delaware, and the reason he had that nickname is because there isn't anything Joe Biden wouldn't have done for credit card companies and corporations based in Delaware, which are almost all corporations, okay? So he became the most corporate senator in the country, and hence, the most beloved by corporate media. And corporate media's protected him his entire career until about a month ago. So for example, in the primaries, both in 2020 and 2024, if you said the senator from MBNA... Uh, uh, I guarantee you almost no one in the audience has heard of it. If you've heard of it, good job, you know politics really well, okay? But the reason you didn't hear of it is because the mainstream media wouldn't say, "That's outrageous of Joe Biden to be such a corporate stooge." They'd say, "That's outrageous of you to point out something that's true and something we reported on earlier," (laughs) okay? And so they protected him at all costs. Now finally, when you get to this version of Joe Biden, we- he can't talk, he can't walk, he's- he has- he bears no resemblance to the young guy who came in saying that money in politics was a problem. Now he's saying money in politics is the solution. And in 2020 he said, "Well, I can raise more money than Bernie. I, I, I can kiss corporate ass better than Bernie. I'm the biggest corporate ass-kisser in the world, so I'm gonna raise a billion dollars and you need to support me." Now of course, he doesn't say it in those words, but that was the message to the establishment, and Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Obama, Clyburn, everybody goes, "Oh, that's right. Oh, Biden, Biden, Biden, Biden. N- not Bernie." I don't know that there's anybody in the country who instinctually dislikes Bernie more than Barack Obama. Uh, that's an interesting... I'm not taking that tangent at this
- 33:49 – 50:36
Money in politics
- CUCenk Uygur
moment. Let's- Mm-hmm. 'Cause you mentioned mainstream media. What's the motivation for mainstream media to be corporatist also? So first of all, they're giant corporations. So they're all multi-billion dollar corporations. In the old days, we had a incredible number of media outlets. So you go to San Francisco, there'd be at least two papers and there'd be a paperboy, and I'm going all the way back, paperboy on each corner, and they're competing with one another. Literally, they'd be catty-corner, right? And one guy's going, "Oh, here are all these details." They're trying to get an audience. They're trying to get people interested. So they're populists, they're interesting, they're muckrakers, they're challenging the government. Fast-forward to now, uh, or not now, but about a decade ago, five years ago, in that ballp- in that ballpark. Now there's only six giant corp- uh, media corporations left, and it's an oligopoly, right? And they're all multi-billion dollar corporations. They all want tax cuts. Half of them are also, especially about 20 years ago during the Iraq War, half of them are defense contractors. So they're just using the news as marketing to start wars, like the Iraq War. And then GE, which owned MSNBC, makes a tremendous amount of money, so much more money from war than it does from media, that media is a good marketing spend for these corporations. Now, that's part of it, that they themselves want the same exact thing as corp- the rest of corporations do for corporate rule, lower tax cuts, deregulation so they can merge, et cetera. But the second part of it is arguably even more important. So where does all that money in politics go? So for example, in 2022, it's just a mid-term election, not, no presidential, should be lower spending. A ridiculous $17 billion are spent, okay? On, on the election cycle. Where does the 17 billion go? Almost all of it goes into corporate media, mainstream media, television, newspapers, radio. They're buying ads like nuts. So we have a reporter at TYT, David Shuster, he used to work at MSNBC, Fox News, et cetera. And David once did a piece about money in politics at a local NBC news station, and his, uh, editor or GM spiked the story. And David a- goes into his office and asks him, "So w- why? This story is true, it's a huge part of politics. If we're gonna report on this issue, we gotta tell you what's actually happening." So he says, "David, come here." H- puts his arm around his shoulders, takes him to the big newsroom and he goes, "You see all this? Money in politics paid for that." That's really fascinating. So big corporations are giving money to politicians through different channels, and then the politicians are spending that money on mainstream media. And then the, and, and so there's a...
- LFLex Fridman
... there's a vicious cycle where it's in the interest of the mainstream media not to criticize the very corporations that are feeding that cycle.
- CUCenk Uygur
So-
- LFLex Fridman
It's not actually direct, it's not like corporations are... 'Cause I, I was thinking one of the ways is direct advertisement, like pharmaceuticals, obviously, advertise a lot on, uh, mainstream media. But there's also indirect, which is like giving the politicians money, the poli- or, or Super PACs, and then the Super PACs then spend money on the-
- CUCenk Uygur
That's why-
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- CUCenk Uygur
... media never t- mainstream media never talks about the number one factor in politics, which is money. Like we all know... I mean, you, now we, as we talked about earlier, we see it with our own eyes, open auction, any country, any company, anybody that has money, the politicians will now literally say, "I am now working for this guy," (laughs) as Trump says, "'Cause he gave me a strong endorsement," which means a lot of money, right? And so... And the press never covers it, almost never, right? So you're telling me you're doing a, uh, an article on the infrastructure bill, or Build Back Better, et cetera, and you're not gonna mention the enormous amount of money that every lobbyist spent on that bill? That's absurd. That's absurd. That's 98% of the ballgame. And the reason they hide the ball is 'cause they don't want you to know this whole thing is based on the money that they are receiving. And, and by the way, the... Well, one more thing about that, Lex, it's that the ads themselves actually, they work and they work pretty well, but that's not the main reason you spend money on ads. You spend the money on ads to get friendly coverage from the content, from the free media that you're getting from that same outlet.
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- CUCenk Uygur
And so since-
- LFLex Fridman
Right.
- CUCenk Uygur
... every newspaper and every news sta- uh, television station and network knows that the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are their top clients, they're going to get billions of dollars from them, they never really criticize the Republican and Democratic Party. On the other hand, if you're an outsider, they'll rip your face off.
- LFLex Fridman
That's also really interesting. So if you're an advertiser, if you're big pharma and you're advertising, it's not the a- that the advertisement works, it's that the, uh, the hosts are too afraid, not like explicitly, just even implicitly, they're self-censoring. They're not going to have any guests that are like controversial, anti-big pharma, or they're not going to make any jokes about big pharma, they're not gonna make... Th- and that, and that kinda, that continues and expands.
- CUCenk Uygur
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
That's really interesting. Yeah.
- CUCenk Uygur
Sometimes it's super direct. When I was a host on MSNBC, I, uh, had a, a company, uh, that I was criticizing in my, uh, script and management looked at it, and by the way, I used to go off prompter a lot and it drove them crazy, not because I wasn't good at it, I, I think my ratings went up whenever I went off prompter, but because they couldn't preapprove the script. And what do they wanna preapprove? "Hey, are you gonna criticize one of our sponsors, one of our advertisers," et cetera. So they, uh, we had a giant fight over it, and the compromise was I moved them lower in the script, but kept them in the story, right? So sometimes it's super direct like that, but more, way more often, it's implicit, it's indirect, you don't have to say it, right?
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- CUCenk Uygur
So I, I give you an ex- spectacular example of it so that you get a sense of how it works implicitly. So since GE's a giant defense contractor, they own MSNBC at the time of the Iraq War, they fired everyone who was against the Iraq War on air. So Phil Donahue, Jesse Ventura, Ashleigh Banfield... But Ashleigh Banfield they did something different with, okay? She was a rising star at the time, she goes and gives a s- speech in Kansas, not really b- even having a policy position, but just talking about the actual cost of this Iraq War and how we should be really careful. They hate that. So they take their rising star and they take her off air, okay? And she goes, "Okay, good. Let me out of my contract. It's okay, I'll go." Because she was such a star at that time, she could have easily gotten somewhere else. And they go, "No, we're not gonna let you out of your contract." "W- why not? Are you gonna pay me to do nothing?" "Yeah. Not only that, we're moving your office." "Where are you moving it to?" They literally moved it into a closet, okay? And they made sure that everybody in the building saw her getting taken off the air and moved into a closet. The closet is the memo, right? That's the memo to the whole building, "You better shut up and do as you're told, okay? So that way I don't have to tell you and get myself in trouble." It's super obvious. There are guard rails here, and you are not allowed to go beyond acceptable thought. And acceptable thought is, "Our sponsors are great, politicians are great, the powerful are great."
- LFLex Fridman
So how do we, uh, how do we begin to fix that? And what exactly are we fixing? Is it the, uh, the influence of the lobbyists, the influence of... Like, th- it feels like there's (laughs) uh, companies have found different ways to achieve influence, right? So how do we get money out of politics?
- CUCenk Uygur
So it's very difficult, but doable, and we will do it. So, uh, but in order to do it, the populist left and the populist right have to unite because... And by, by the way, that is why we have the culture wars.
- LFLex Fridman
That's why you're voting for Trump.
- CUCenk Uygur
(laughs) No chance. Okay, so we can get into that in a minute. So the culture wars are meant to divide us. If we, if we get united, we have enough leverage and power to be able to do it. But, uh, you can't do it through a normal bill, because if you do it in a bill, the whole point of capturing the Supreme Court was to make sure that they could kill any piece of legislation that would protect the American people.
- LFLex Fridman
Are you saying the Supreme Court is also captured by this?
- CUCenk Uygur
Oh, 100%. So (laughs) okay, so let me explain. Again, people, for the uninitiated, they think, "Oh, that sounds conspiratorial." Well, in this case, that's actually somewhat true because people now know about this, it's the Powell Memo, right? The most infamous political memo in history. Lewis Powell writes a memo for the Chamber of Commerce in 1971 that's basically a blueprint for how the Chamber of Commerce can take over the government. And Lewis Powell explains one of the most important things you have to do is take over the media-But even more important than that is taking over the Supreme Court, 'cause the Supreme Court is the ultimate arbiter of what is allowed and not allowed. And he says we need, quote, "activist judges to, uh, to help business interests on the court," okay? And then Nixon reads the memo and goes, "That sounds like a really good idea. How 'bout I put you on the Supreme Court?" And he puts Lewis Powell, the guy who wrote the memo, on the Supreme Court, where he's the deciding vote in Bellotti and, uh, and, uh, Buckley. So Bellotti's, uh, those two decisions are in '76 and '78, and what they say is, "Yeah, yeah, I read the Constitution and it says that, uh, money is speech." No, it isn't. (laughs) And no, it didn't. That's not even close to true. They just made it up and they said, "Okay, and corporations, they're human beings." (laughs) No, they're not. That's preposterous, right? And they have the same inalienable rights as human beings and citizens do, and money is speech, and speech is an inalienable right, so corporations can spend unlimited money in politics. And there goes our democracy, gone, okay? So Citizens United just shot a dead horse with a Gatling gun and made it worse and put it on steroids, but it was already dead in '78. So that's why every chart you, you see, for the rest of your life, you'll see this, um, every chart in, about the American economy starts to diverge in 1978. So until, '38 to '78, we have golden 40 years of economic prosperity, we create the greatest middle class the world has ever seen, and, uh, our productivity is sky-high, but our wages match our productivity. After '78, productivity is still sky-high, best in the world, okay? Sometimes people, "Oh, the w- American worker's lazy." Not remotely true. We work our ass off, okay? But wages flatline and they've been flatlining for about 50 years straight, and the reason is because the Supreme Court made bribery legal. So in order to get past the Supreme Court, you only have one choice, that's an amendment, and so you have to get an amendment. Amendments are very difficult, but, so for example, you, you need two thirds of Congress to even propose the amendment.
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- CUCenk Uygur
So, well, why would Congress propose an amendment that would take away their own power, right? 'Cause almost everybody in Congress got there through corruption. Their main talent is, I can kiss corporate ass better than you can, right? So I, they take the most amount, a person with more money in Congress wins 95% of the time, right? But the good news is, the Founding Fathers were geniuses and they put in a second outlet. They said, "Or two thirds of the states can call for a convention where you can propose an amendment, and after an amendment is proposed, then three quarters of the states have to ratify it." That's what makes this so difficult, because getting three quarters of the states, there's so many red states, so many blue states, getting three quarters of the states to agree is near impossible. But there is one issue that the whole country agrees on, 93% of Americans believe that politicians serve their donors and not their voters. So this is the one thing we can unite on. If we unite on this, we push our states to call for a convention, we all go to the convention together, we bring democracy alive, and we propose amendments to the Constitution, and the best amendment gets three quarters of the states to ratify, you go above the Supreme Court, and you solve the whole thing.
- LFLex Fridman
So if 93% of people want this, why hasn't it happened yet? I mean, th- the obvious answer is there's, uh, corporate control of the media and the politicians, but it seems like our current system and the megaphone that a president has should be able to kind of unite the populous left and right, so it shouldn't be that difficult to do. Like, why hasn't a person like Trump, who's a billionaire-
- CUCenk Uygur
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
... or on the left, um, a rich businessman run just on this and win?
- CUCenk Uygur
Well, eventually they will, right?
- LFLex Fridman
Right.
- 50:36 – 1:09:47
Fixing politics
- CUCenk Uygur
- LFLex Fridman
So what would an amendment look like that, uh, helps prevent money being an influence in politics?
- CUCenk Uygur
So I started a group called Wolf PAC, um, and-
- LFLex Fridman
Nice name.
- CUCenk Uygur
(laughs) Thank you. Wolf-PAC.com. And, and the reason why I named it Wolf PAC, uh, b- is because everyone in Washington I knew would hate that name.
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- CUCenk Uygur
Um, it's a populist name and everybody in Washington snickers. Like, (laughs) "I thought you were supposed to name it Americans for America and just trick people," et cetera. No, no, no. Wolf PAC means we're coming for you, okay? We're not coming for you in a weirdo physical or violent way. We're coming for you in a democratic way, okay? So we're gonna p- uh, go to those state, uh, houses, we're gonna get them to propose a convention, and we did it in five states, but then the Democratic Party started beating us back. We'll get to that. And, uh, and so, uh, we are going to overturn your apple cart. And we're gonna bring, put the American people back in charge. So what does the amendment say? Number one, uh, a lot of people have, uh, different opinions on what it should say, and that's what you sort out in a convention. So for example, one of the things that conservatives can propose, which makes sense, is term limits, because w- the reason why these super old politicians are in charge is because they provide a return on investment. So you know if you give to Biden, Pelosi, or McConnell, they're gonna deliver for you. They love that return on invest, they don't wanna risk it on a new guy. The r- new guy might have principles, eww. Or, you know, might want to actually do a little bit for his voters, boo. Whereas these old w- you know, and every corrupt system has these old guys hanging around that help m- maintain power, et cetera. So my particular proposal in the amendments would be d- a couple of things. One is end private financing of elections. So if ... And look, if you're a business person, you're a capitalist, you know this with absolute certainty. If somebody signs your check, that's the person you work for, right? So if private interests are funding politicians, the politicians will serve private interests. And then you're gonna get into a fight like Elon did in New Jersey, where the car dealerships and Tesla are getting into an auction. All right, can I hear $100,000 now? Uh, a million, two million, three million, right? And then, and now you gotta go bribe the government official. That's called a campaign contribution. And s- this is a terrible system, right? End the private financing, go to complete public financing of elections. That's when the conservatives, because they've been propagandized by corporate media ... Yes, mainstream media got into your head, too, and right wing media got into your head, too. And right wing media also financed by a lot of this corrupt interest, and so they tell you, "Oh, you don't want to publicly finance. Oh my God, you'd be spending like $1 billion on politicians." Brother, they're spending trillions of dollars of your money because they're financed by the guys that they're giving all of your money to.
- LFLex Fridman
So can you educate me? Does that, uh, prevent something like Citizens United, so like super PACs are all gone in this case? So all-
- CUCenk Uygur
Gone.
- LFLex Fridman
... so, so indirect funding is also ...
- CUCenk Uygur
Indirect funding's gone, direct funding's gone. You, you have to set up some thresholds. Y- not everybody can just get m- money to run. You have to prove that you have some sort of, uh, popular support, so signature gathering, s- uh, you would still allow for small money donations, like up to $100, something along those lines. That's-
- LFLex Fridman
Not, not 5,000 or whatever it is now?
- CUCenk Uygur
Yeah, I think 5,000's too high, but those are fine debates. Yeah, you know? But you basically wanna create an incentive. Everything is about incentives and disincentives. Again, capitalists realize this better than anyone else, right? So you wanna set up an incentive to serve your voters, not your donors. So if you take away private donors, well, there goes that incentive, and that's gigantic, right? And then if you set up small grassroots funding as a way to get past the threshold to get the funding to run a r- an election, well then good, because then you're serving small donors, which are generally voters, right? So that's what you want. And ending private financing is critical, but the second thing is ......ending corporate personhood. So this is where you get into a lot of fights, because you have two reasons. One is some folks, uh, have a principled position against it, and they say, "Well, I mean, uh, the Sierra Club is technically a corporation. ACLU is technically a corporation, and so if you end corporate personhood then, uh, they, you know... That could endanger their existence, right?" No, it doesn't endanger their existence at all, right? So it doesn't endanger GM or GE's existence. It doesn't endanger anybody's existence. Corporations exist. We're not trying to take them away. I would never do that, right? That's not smart, that's not workable, et cetera. We're just saying they don't have constitutional rights. So they have the rights that we give them. And by the way, read The Founding Fathers... This is also in my book. They hated corporations. The American Revolution was partly against the British East India Company, and so the Tea Party in Boston was against that corporation. They threw their tea overboard. It was not against the British monarchy. And so they and all the Founding Fathers warned us over and over again, "Watch out for corporations, okay? 'Cause once they form, they will amass money and power and look to kill off democracy." And they were totally right. That's exactly what happened, and so it's not that you don't have them. It's that you... Through democratic capitalism, you limit their power. They definitely... They... You can give them a bunch of rights. You say, "Hey, you have a right to exist. You have a right to do this, this, and this, okay?" But you do not c- have constitutional rights of a, of a citizen, and so you don't have the right to speak to a politician by giving them a billion dollars.
- LFLex Fridman
And you believe that the people will be able to find the right policies to regulate and tax the corporations such that capitalism can flourish still?
- CUCenk Uygur
Yes. You know why? 'Cause I'm a real populist, and I believe in the people. So I... They... I drive the establishment crazy because they don't believe in the people. They think, "Oh, Jake, have, have you seen MAGA? Have you seen these guys? Have you seen the radicals on the left? We're so much smarter. You know how many, uh, Ivy League degrees we have, right? And, and we know what we're doing." No, you don't. No, you're... See, everybody to some degree looks out for their own interests, right? Why I like capitalism and why I love democracy is because it's the wisdom of the crowd, and so in the long run, the crowd is right. Oftentimes in the short term, we're wrong, okay? But the wisdom of the crowd in the long run is much, much better than the elites that run things. The elites say, "Well, we're so smart and educated, so we're gonna know better what's good for you." No, brother, you're gonna know what's better for you. And, and, and so here's something that a lot of people get wrong on the populous left and right. They think, "Oh, those guys are evil." They're not evil. I've, I've met them. I worked at MSNBC. I worked on cable. I, I went to Wharton, you know, Columbia Law. I s-... I know a lot of those guys. And so they're not at all evil. They don't even know that they're mainly serving their own interests. They just naturally do it, right? And so they think the carried interest loophole makes a lot of sense, right? They think corporate tax cuts makes a lot of sense. You n- not getting higher wages, you not having healthcare makes a lot of sense. It doesn't make any goddamn sense, but they get themselves to believe it, and that's another par- portion of the invisible hand in the market.
- LFLex Fridman
So there, there's problems with every, every path. Uh, so the elite, like you mentioned, could be corrupted by greed, by power, and so on. But the crowd... I agree with you, by the way, about the wisdom of the crowd versus the wisdom of the elite, but the crowd can be captured by a charismatic leader. So the problem with populism... And I'm probably a populist myself. The problem with populism is that it can be and has been throughout history captured by bad people.
- CUCenk Uygur
But if you say to me, "Trust the elites or trust the people," I'm gonna trust the people every single time.
- LFLex Fridman
Well, th- that's why you're such an interesting n- uh, I don't want to say contradiction, but there's a tension that creates the balance, so to me, in the way you're speaking, my, uh, result in hurting capitalism, so it's, it's easy to... In fighting corporatism to, um, to hurt companies, to... So to go too far the other way-
- CUCenk Uygur
Yeah, of course, of course.
- LFLex Fridman
... in terms of companies. And so, like, when you talked about corporate tax, so what's, what's the magic, what's the magic number for the corporate tax? 'Cause if it's too high, like, companies leave, right?
- CUCenk Uygur
Yeah. Companies have so much power right now. This pendulum has swung so far, and we're... Guys, we're almost out of time. The window's closing. The minute private equity buys all of our homes, the residential real estate market, we're screwed. We're indentured servants forever, okay? There goes wealth creation for the average American. So you're right, Lex. This... It's that it's not a contradiction. It's a tension that is inevitable to get to balance. The reason why people kind of can't figure me out, they're like, "Well, you're on the left, but you're a capitalist," et cetera. That's not a contradiction. That's getting to the right balance, and in order to do that, like if you say, "Well, if we change the system, I'm afraid of change, because what if the pendulum swings too far in the other direction," right? Well, then you would be opposed to change at all times, so if you do that... I- it actually reminds me of the Biden fight, right? So I'm like, "Guys, he has, he has n- almost no chance of winning. He stands for the establishment. He can't talk," but then the number one pushback I'd get from Democrats was, "Yeah, but what if we change? It's so scary! Uh, we don't know about Kamala Harris. What if it's not Kamala Harris? It's so scary! Don't change." And I'm like, "Yeah, but-... if you say change might be worse, it also might be better, and you're at zero. Anything is better, right? And right now, in terms of corruption in America, we're at 98% corruption. So we got 2% decency left. Brother, this is when you want change. And so to... A- and, and, and Lex, if you actually have wisdom of the crowd, just like in supply and demand and how it works in economics, it works the same way in a functioning democracy. You go too far, you come back in. So for example, when Reagan came into office, me and my dad and my family, we were Republicans. Why? At that point, the mar- highest marginal tax rate was at 70%. 70% is too high, right? Now, they... Then he brought it all the way down to 28%. That's too low, right? So... And, and by... And that's how the, the system modulates itself. Already, we were headed towards corruption in... 'Cause it's the '80s now, we're past 78, magic 78 marker, right? So... And, and even Carter was way more conservative economically than people realize, 'cause we were already getting past it by the time it's... in his administration. But the bottom line is, yes, you're go-... Whenever you have real wisdom of the crowd, whether it's in business or in politics, you're gonna have fluctuation, you're gonna have that pendulum swinging back and forth. You don't want wild swings, communism, corporatism, right? You wanna get to, "Hey, where, where's the right balance here between capitalism and what people think is socialism?"
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah. So I guess, uh, I agree with most of the things you said about the corruption. Uh, I just wish there would be more celebration of the fact that capitalism and some incredible companies in the history of the 20th century has created so much wealth, so much innovation, that has increased the quality of life on average. They've also increased the wealth inequality and exploitation of the workers and this kind of stuff, but you, you want to not forget to celebrate the awesomeness that companies have also brought outside the political sphere, just in creating awesome stuff.
- CUCenk Uygur
Look, I run a company.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- CUCenk Uygur
And so I don't want companies to go away. And, and I don't want you to hate all companies. I think Young Turks is a wonderful company, right? We provide great healthcare, we take care of our employees, we care about the community, et cetera. And we're building a whole nation online on, on those principles and the right way to run a company, right? Um, but guys, we're at the wrong part of the pendulum. The companies have overwhelming power and they're crushing us. We're like, uh, that scene in Star Wars where the trash compactor is closing in on them, the walls are closing in. We're almost out of time because they've captured the government almost entirely, they're only serving corporate interests. We've got to get back into balance before it's too late, and that's why I care so much about structural issues. So I form Justice Democrats, so that's AOC, et cetera, right? That's... People know it as the Squad, they know it as Just Democrats, et cetera. I'm one of the co-founders of that, and my number one rule was no corporate PAC money, okay? So you're not allowed to take corporate PAC money. By the way, now Matt Gaetz and Josh Hawley have stopped taking corporate PAC money and they've become, to some degree, on economic issues, genuine populists. It's amazing. It happens overnight. All of a sudden they're holding... They're talking about holding corporations accountable, et cetera. Now Just Democrats wound up having other problems. They got too deep into social issues, not economic issues.
- LFLex Fridman
There's a general sort of criticism of billionaires, right? This idea... Now you could say that billionaires are avoiding taxes and that they're not getting taxed enough, but I think under that flag of criticizing billionaires is criticizing all, uh, companies that do epic shit, that build stuff-
- CUCenk Uygur
Oh, okay. So-
- LFLex Fridman
... create stuff. That, that's, that's what I'm worried about. I don't hear enough, like genuine... You know, I like celebrating people, I like celebrating ideas. I just don't hear enough genuine celebration of companies when they do cool things.
- CUCenk Uygur
No, because... Okay, so are you right? Uh, not about companies, but about capitalism? Yes. Because, you know, you look at life expectancy 200 years ago and you look at it now and you go, "Wow. Holy shit, we did amazing things." Right? So... And what happened in the last 200 years? We went from dictatorships more towards democracy, wisdom of the crowd. We went from, you know, serfs and indentured servants and a nobility that holds the land to more towards capitalism, and boom, the crowd is right. Things go really well. M- The advances in medicine are amazing, and medicine's a great example. So a- and on our show, I point all those things out and I say, "Look, we hate the drug companies because of how they've captured the government," right? But we don't hate the drug companies for creating great drugs, that those drugs save lives. They saved my life, they saved countless millions upon millions of lives. So the right idea isn't, "Shut down drug companies." The right idea is, "Don't let them buy the government," right? So... And, and I know we get back into our instinctual shells, so on the left they'll be, "Oh, we should get rid of all billionaires." Why? Like, how does that fix the system? Tell me how fi- it fixes the system, and I'm all ears, right? Uh, my solution is end private financing, then you can be a billionaire all you like. You can't buy the government, right? That's a more logical way to go about it. Uh, I've never worn an Eat the Rich shirt (laughs) and it drives me crazy. I'm like, "You would've eaten FDR," right? (laughs) And FDR is the best president, most populous president, in my opinion. And so no, there's wonderful rich people. Of course, of course, there's a range of humanity, right? But you don't want to get rid of the rich, you don't want to get rid of companies, but you also don't want to let them control everything. So, okay, here, I'll give you an example that's really... and that informs a lot of how I think about things, uh, which is my dad. So my dad was a farmer in southeastern Turkey, uh, near the Syrian border. No money. Um, in fact, his dad died when he was six months old and he, uh... And so they were saddled with debt. And, uh, no electricity in his house....like, as poor as poor gets. And, uh, he wound up living the American dream. And so, how did he do that? What, what made the difference? Uh, well, what made the difference is opportunity, right? So I'm a populist because my dad was in the masses, right? And, and the elites say, "The masses are no good. We're smart, you're not. We're educated, you're not." Uh, we, we... Meritocracy, we talk about that. We have earned merit. And if you're poor or middle class, you have not earned merit, okay? You're useless and worthless. And I hate that. So what did, uh, Turkey do back in the 1960s that liberated my dad? They provided free college education. You had to test into it, okay? But the top 15% got a free college education at the best colleges in Turkey. So, he... And my uncle saved all of our lives when he came to my dad and said, "Do you like working on this farm?" And my dad's like, "Fuck, no," right? "It's super hot. It's super hard. It's just, they gotta get up at 4:00 in the morning. If they're lucky, their family next door gives them a mule. If they're not, they gotta carry the shit themselves, okay?" He's... So my uncle told him, "Work just as hard in school, and you'll be able to get a house, a car, pretty girls, et cetera." So my dad works his ass off, gets into school, and he comes out a mechanical engineer, and starts his own company. He creates a company in Turkey, hires hundreds of people. He then moves to America, creates a company here, hires tons of people, right? So do I hate companies? No, my dad set up two companies and, and I saw how much it benefited people. I saw how much... Employees would come up to my dad 20, 30 years later in the street and hug him. And they'd tell me as a young kid, "Your dad's the most fair boss we ever had, and we love him for it," right? That's how you run a company. And he taught me the value of hard work. But the reason I brought it up here is because he taught me... Look, like, s- skill and ability is a genetic lottery. So you're not gonna just get the rich to win all the genetic lottery. No, there's gonna be tons of poor kids and middle class kids who have... Or just as good, if not better. You have to provide them the opportunity, the fair chance to succeed. You have to believe in them. So, this isn't about disempowering anyone. It's about empowering all of those kids who are doing the right thing, who are smart and want to work hard, so they could build their own companies and add to the economy.
- 1:09:47 – 1:20:45
Meritocracy & DEI
- CUCenk Uygur
- LFLex Fridman
What, what in general is your view on meritocracy?
- CUCenk Uygur
So I love meritocracy. I wish that we lived in a meritocracy, and I want to drive towards living in a meritocracy. So that's why I don't like equality of results. So, okay, now, people that are on the left will get super mad at that and go, "What do you mean?" Well, okay, brother. Let's say you're at work, and you got one guy who's working his ass off, and the other guy that's going, "I don't care, I'm not gonna do it," right? Well, the guy who works super hard has to pick up the slack. Now he's working twice as hard, right? And now you want the same results, you want the same salary as that guy? No, brother, no. He's working twice, uh, four times, 10 times harder than you. That's not fair. Fairness matters. I lived... We wound up... I mean, this is... We were in the suburbs of Jersey, but we wound up in Freehold eventually. And we lived across a farm, which is kind of... Eh, in central Jersey, it happens, right? And it was called Fair Chance Farm, (laughs) okay? I was like, "How did I get...? This is amazing," right?
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah, yeah.
- CUCenk Uygur
And I love that. I... That's the essence of America, and that's what I want to go back to. So, we've got to create that opportunity, uh, f- not just because it's the moral thing to do, but because it's also the economically smart thing to do. If you enable all those great people that are in, in, in lower income classes and middle income classes, you're gonna get a much better, uh, economy, a much stronger democracy. So that's the direction we go.
- LFLex Fridman
So, again, it's about balance, but what do you think about DEI policies? Uh, say, in academia and, and companies? Sort of the movement as it has evolved. Where's that on the balance? Is that, um...
- CUCenk Uygur
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
Uh, how far is it pushing towards equality of outcome versus equality of opportunity?
- CUCenk Uygur
Okay, so now we're getting into social issues, right? So this is where we all, uh, rip each other apart, and then the people at the top laugh their ass off at us and go, "Ha ha, we got 'em fighting over trans issues." (laughs) They're killing each other. It's hilarious. And they're so busy, they don't realize we're running the place, right? Okay, but let's engage. Some people will look at DEI and go, "Well, that just gives me an opportunity. Just like anyone else, I love DEI." Another person will look at it and go, "No, that gives... That says that you should be picked above me, and I hate DEI," right? So the reality of DEI is a little bit more complicated. And so... But you gotta go back. So first, did we need affirmative action in the 1960s? Definitely. Why? All the firefighter jobs in South Carolina, as an example, are, are going to white guys. All the longshoreman jobs in New York, LA, wherever, uh, you have it, are all going to white guys, 'cause that's how the system was. Yes, also in the North, right? And so, we now are in a civil rights era. We decide we're gonna go towards equality. Minorities, in that case, mainly, uh, Black Americans, had to find a way to break in. I'm not trying to... Like, if you're a longshoreman and it's a good job, you naturally want to pass it on to your son. I get your instinct. I don't hate you for it, right? But we gotta let Black kids also have a shot at it, right? So you need it in the beginning. But, at a certain point, you have to phase it out. So when I was growing up, it's now in the late '80s, early '90s, I hated affirmative action. And I've been principled on it from day one, uh, and to this day. I don't... I'm not in favor of affirmative action. I say it on the show all the time. Why?I'm a minority. Being a Turk, I grew up Muslim, I'm an atheist now, but, but, generally speaking, a Muslim, uh, is certainly a minority in America, and pretty much a hated one, uh, overall. Uh, so... But I didn't check off Muslim or Turkish or any ethnicity when I applied to college, because I believe Amer- in a meritocracy, a- as we were talking about. But we don't really have a meritocracy now. And so... But... So I can come back to that. But, but right now... But, so I didn't check it off because I didn't want an unfair advantage. Uh, because I wanna earn it. I wanna earn it. So now I'm in law school, and I'm hanging out with right-wingers, because at that point I'm a Republican. And one of the guys says to me about one of our, uh, black student, uh, going to Columbia, he says, "Oh, I wonder how he got in here?" God, that is the problem with affirmative action. It devalues the accomplishments of every minority in the country. You have to transition away from it. If you don't, it sets up a caste system, and that caste system is lethal to democracy. So, does DEI go too far in some instances? Yes. But is it a boogeyman that's gonna take all the white jobs and make them black j- (laughs) as Trump would say, "black jobs," right? And give minorities too much power, et cetera? No, the idea isn't to rob you and to give all the opportunity to minorities. The idea is to make it equal. But as the pendulum swings, did it swing too far in some directions? Yes. The left can't acknowledge that, and the right thinks, can't acknowledge that... Of course, at some point, you gotta give a chance for others to break in, so they have a fair chance.
- LFLex Fridman
By the way, Michelle Obama had a good line about the black jobs in the, uh, the DNC speech-
- CUCenk Uygur
Great line. I love that.
- LFLex Fridman
...where, uh, somebody should tell Trump that the presidency might be just one of those black jobs. Anyway, uh, but why do you think the left doesn't acknowledge when DEI gets ridiculous? Which it, uh, in certain places, and, uh, in certain places at a large scale has g- has gotten ridiculous.
- CUCenk Uygur
Because, uh, people are taught, uh, to just be in the tribe they're in, and to believe it 100%. Like, I've gotten kicked out of every tri- I'm the p- I might be the most attacked man in internet history, partly 'cause we've been around forever, and partly because I disagree with every part of the political spectrum, because I believe in independent thought, and the minute you vary a little bit, people go nuts. And so the, the far-left tribe, uh, is gonna just go with their preset ideology just like the far-right tribe is. So for example, on trans issues. We've protected trans people for over 20 years on The Young Turks. We fought for equality for trans people and for all LGBTQ people for two decades. We did it way before anyone else did. When Biden came out, uh, in favor of gay marriage in 2013, we're like, "This is comically late." So, like, we were all supposed to, like, congratulate him in the year 2013 that he thinks gay people should have the same rights as straight people? And then he had to push Obama to get there, right? So... On the other hand, I'm like, guys, if you allow trans women to go into professional sports, not at the high school level, but professional sports, but let's say they go into MMA or boxing. And a trans woman... I mean, it happens in boxing, it happens in MMA. Punches, uh, a biological woman so hard that he, that she kills her, right? So you're gonna set back trans rights 50 years. I'm not trying to hurt you. I'm trying to help you. You have to do bounds of reason. So when I say simple things like that, and I say give LeBron James every hormone blocker on planet Earth, he's still gonna dominate the WNBA, okay? It would be comical. He might score 100 points a night, okay? And they'll say, "Oh, that's outrageous!" And they've... Some have called me Nazi-
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- CUCenk Uygur
...for saying that trans women... Or that professional leagues should make their own decisions on whether they allow trans women, or, in or not. So why do they say that? 'Cause they're so besieged, they think we cannot give an inch. We cannot give any ground. If you give any ground, you're a Nazi, (laughs) okay? So we've gotta get out of that mindset. You're n- you can't function in a democracy and be in an extreme position and expect the rest of the country to go towards your extreme position.
- LFLex Fridman
So why do you think we are not in a meritocracy?
- CUCenk Uygur
So, because of the corruption. It's... So, for example... But there's also... But remember, corporate media is the matrix, and they plug you into cable, right? In the old days. Now it's a little bit different because of online media. But especially 10 years ago, and remember, we started 22 years ago, so I've been losing my mind over how obvious corporate media corruption h- has been for decades now, right? But no one acknowledged it until online media got stronger. But one of the myths that corporate media creates is the myth of meritocracy. Not that meritocracy can't exist or shouldn't exist, but they pretend it exists today. So, the problem with that myth, Lex, is that it gets people thinking, "Well, if they're already rich, they must have merited it, by definition." So all the rich have merit. And the reverse of that. If you're poor or middle class, well, you must not have merited wealth. So you're no good. We don't have to listen to you. And that's a really dangerous, awful idea. And so, if we get to a dem- meritocracy one day, I would... I'll be the happiest person in America. But right now, it's... Look, here, I'll g- give you a- eh, an example that I put in the book. And they... And it's not us. This, uh, other folks at this, uh, YouTube video, I can't even quite find who they were, but it was a brilliant video.... um, and they said, "Okay, we're gonna do a 100-yard race. But hold on, before we start, anyone who has two parents, take two steps forward. Anyone who has, went to college, take another two steps forward. Anyone who d- doesn't have, uh, bills to pay for c- education anymore, take two steps forward." They do all these things, right? And then at the end, before they start, somebody's 20 yards from the finish line, and a lot of people are still at the f- starting line. And then they go, "Okay, now we're gonna run a race." (laughs) The guy who's right next to the finish line wins, and they go, "Meritocracy." Okay? (laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
So, uh, the, the, the challenge there is to know which disparities when you just freeze the system and observe are actually a result of some kind of discrimination or flaw in the system, versus the result of meritocracy of the better, of the better runner being ahead?
- CUCenk Uygur
That's right. There are some parts that are easy to s- solve, Lex. So, you know, um, if you donated to a politician and he gave you a billion-dollar subsidy-
- LFLex Fridman
Right.
- CUCenk Uygur
... that's not meritocracy, right?
- LFLex Fridman
Right. So if you follow the money, you can see the flaws in the system.
- CUCenk Uygur
Exactly. And so, and again, nothing's ever perfect at any snapshot of history, right? Or of, of the moment. You're gonna be at some point in the pendulum swing. But if you let, if you trust the people and you let the pendulum swing, but not wildly, then you're gonna get to the right answers in the
- 1:20:45 – 1:55:19
Far-left vs far-right
- CUCenk Uygur
long run.
- LFLex Fridman
So you think, uh, this woke mind virus that the right refers to is, is, is a problem, but not a big problem?
- CUCenk Uygur
No. So y- the right wing drives me crazy. So look, guys, your instincts of populism is correct. Your instincts of anti-corruption is correct, right? And I love you for it. And so, and in, in a lot of ways, the right-wing voters figured out that the whole system's screwed before left-wing voters did. I shouldn't say left-wing voters, 'cause progressives and left wing have been saying it for not only decades, but maybe centuries, right?
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- CUCenk Uygur
But Democratic voters, a lot of Democratic voters, some of them actually like this current system. Some of them ha- a lot of them have been tricked into liking this current system. And an- th- the Left should be fighting against corruption harder than the Right. But right now, unfortunately, that's not the case. So there's a lot that I like about right-wing voters, okay? But you guys get tricked on social issues so easily, right? So how many people are involved in trans high school sports and a girl who should have finished first in that track thing, you know, race in the middle of Indiana, finished second? First of all, this is the big crime. This is ... And how many people are involved? About 7, 13 out of a country of 330 million people. And you can't see that that's a distraction, right? So, and every- everything they did that is like bait that the right-wing media puts out there, they run after. I mean, Tucker Carlson doing insane segments about Eminem should be sexier. Uh, pota- Mr. Potato Head has gender issues. Guys, get out of there. Get out of there. It's a trap, okay?
Episode duration: 4:10:27
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