Speaker 1hello hello how you guys doing i know i missed one last week didn't i just like i did the week before you know i'm slacking man i'm still you're starting to feel like after episode 25 now the momentum is slowing down but in my defense you know i had to postpone the one last week because you know there was a major significant global if not you know at least national event in the um the death of the queen i was literally about to press the button on the frank turner episode when somebody said to me hey man have you heard the news and i was like oh well i'm not going to post the fucking my podcast episode now you know what i mean i'll be like in other news check out my podcast so i decided to postpone the episode with frank turner which pushed us into the following week and then i went on holiday um and i had a cancellation of one of my guests as well so a couple of things happened whereby one episode came out within like a kind of two and a half week period i can't remember who cares what matters is we're still going baby and here we are we're back with a brand new episode of frank turner and frank turner and frank turner and frank turner episode and boy what an episode this is going to be i have been hounding today's guests like a mad dog i recently read a book called giants by an author called peter phillips who's a professor of political sociology at sonoma state university in america and i mean it with 100 sincerity when i say that the book giants by peter phillips is one of the best books i have ever read um it's still it's left a lasting impact on me i'm looking at it right now and i know that it's going to be a book that i'm going to read it's going to be a book that i'm going to read it's going to be a book that i'm going to be going back to time and time again now we talk a lot on the podcast about the elite and the rich and the powerful and the the rule makers and who runs the world and that sort of thing but who exactly are we talking about when we say things like the elite and the rich and the powerful who exactly are we talking about well peter phillips has put together a directory of 389 of the world's elite most powerful people these are the people that essentially run the world named by name with a little biog on each of them showing you where they went to university the companies that they're a part of the boards that they're a member of the institutions that they function in and you get to see a bit of a pattern when you look through these lists now this is fascinating stuff if this is the world's most powerful elite named by name it's personifying what we often talk about in vague abstract terms such as the elite and the powerful and trust me you haven't heard of a single damn one of them because neither did i but if you stick around to the end of the podcast i am going to name a ton of them for you straight from the start so that you can go and do your own research and get an insight into exactly what i'm talking about here because you'll be like who are these people i've never heard of them but oh my god now i know that when you get into this nature of inquiry you can sometimes skirt dangerously close to the realm of conspiracy theory this is not that book trust me this is painstakingly researched and meticulously put together in a really simple to read digestible book which i read in like a few days honestly it's such an easy read it sounds like it's going to be heavy going but it's not in the book peter phillips simplifies it by laying it out into four separate layers at the top you've got what he calls the giants now it's essentially 17 asset management firms that control pretty much everything else that happens on planet earth 17 beneath that he's put what he calls the facilitators now this is institutions such as like the imf the world trade organization the world bank the trilateral commission the world economic council of foreign relations basically the social clubs where all these elite members develop their relationships with each other cut deals you know strengthen their class connections and and basically stay relevant within the the world within which they operate the even scarier thing about that though is if you look at who is also a member of these these social clubs and of course peter phillips lays it all out in the the chapter that deals with the facilitators he names them all by name which is the theme of the book you'll also see prime ministers presidents members of parliament royal family members media moguls and you get to see how all these threads of power basically fit together and merge through these institutions such as the trilateral commission and the council of foreign relations and the atlantic council because it's not just these super rich financier guys it's you know heads of military intelligence officers and policy advisors and members of think tanks you know they're all part of the same club it's the same names time and time again you see them in the chapter where he deals with the the giants you see them the facilitators and you see them in other chapters as well it's just a revolving buffet of the same really really rich dudes where the lines are blurred between governments finance military and media it's absolutely fucking terrifying but peter lays out exactly who these guys are by name it's such a unique and brilliant idea and the book like i said it's a short read it's very concise it's not overly academic or anything like that peter lays out the purpose of each of the four layers and then he describes who the members are of those layers and how they interact with the others it's a brilliant fascinating really important work and you know when something's good when you've got noam chomsky on the front saying and this is a quote who exactly are the masters this remarkable inquiry lifts the veil providing detailed and often shocking revelations when chomsky says you're cool you know you're cool so i want to bring on the guests and stop waffling now um i hope i've bigged up the book enough for you guys to rush out and get a copy it's called giants by peter phillips is out now on seven stories press it's actually a few years old so um one can only assume that things have gotten so much better right well let's find out so peter phillips has been a professor of political sociology at sonoma state university since 1994 he is a former director of project censored and a former president of the university of sonoma state university president of the media freedom foundation he is also a multi-award winning highly acclaimed author and it's his absolutely incredible latest book giants which i'll be mostly speaking with him about today so peter thanks so much for taking time out your busy schedule to join us today it's a real treat how you doing sir great james thanks for having me on well thanks for being with us man i really do appreciate it and i as i said in the intro there i'm a huge huge fan of the book i think it's a really important work and hats off and kudos to yourself for putting together such a brilliant and important book i think for people who haven't yet read the book a good place to start would be a simple question which i think is probably going to open up a pandora's box um the book is called giants so who are the giants
Speaker 2the giants uh are trillion dollar investment companies uh like black rock and jp morgan chase they have they invest people's money multi-millionaires give them millions of dollars and then they'll invest it in the market and they'll invest it in the market and they'll invest it in the market and they'll invest it in the market and they'll invest it in the market and they'll try to get a guaranteed return in the you know seven percent plus rate um and as we looked at this we started to realize that these are really giant companies that you know a trillion dollars you know it's a thousand billions and um some of these companies in 2017 were you know four trillion or two trillion i mean just massive amounts of of of money there and there were 17 companies in 2017 that uh were a trillion dollar had over a trillion dollars in assets now what we're working on right now is an update to that and uh today there are 31 companies that are giants so have over a trillion dollars in assets and the original and the original 17 have mostly doubled their assets in the last five years wow so we look at who's managing these companies um who's on their board of directors and uh do kind of identify them and say okay fellas um it's time that we really uh address some of the the uh concerns about wealth concentration in the world and what's happening the environmental problem the environmental problem health concerns the concerns of increased poverty in the world and um and access to uh resources uh that have been privatized and maintained for personal self-interest
Speaker 1these 31 mega firms that you're talking about then they're important to be singled out because essentially they sit at the top of the pyramid don't they their tentacles um infiltrate pretty much every everything else on the planet don't they is is that why you you focused on what in the book what was 17 mega firms which now you've just said is 31 is that because essentially they are the top of the food chain yeah
Speaker 2well they they manage free-flowing capital so i mean corporations have assets they have um buildings and patents and um equipment and uh production kinds of things what we're talking about here is free-flowing capital in the world and that's massively increased there's been this financialization process of trying to monetize literally everything in the world and to make returns on it so uh the people the companies with the largest amount to invest have a huge impact on on what's going on in the world and one of our biggest concerns of course is the environmental issues that uh um we're the world is facing today. is literally threatening um human existence one of the questions
Speaker 1i wanted to to come on to but i'll save it for a bit is with regards to to that um the people the actual human beings behind this and what is the conflict there between what they do for a living and their role in the world and i'm certain an awareness that they must have of the effects of that but i'm going to park that up because i want to delve more into the mechanics of how this system works because in the book you describe it in in four separate but interlinked layers so at the top you've got the giants then you've got the facilitators you've got the protectors and you've got the ideologues so if we could if we could briefly run through those one at a time so the giants you've just explained are these 31 mega asset management firms that sits pretty much at the top of the food chain beneath that then you've got the facilitators now these are organizations such as the imf the world trade organization the world bank the g7 could you explain the nature of these institutions and the role they play in keeping this system afloat
Speaker 2well what we're looking at over the last quarter century or more has been the globalization of capital and when we say that we create these companies that are managed capital and governments support them in the ability to um invest and and get returns literally anywhere in the world so these big capital investment companies they very much would like to be furthering their investment capabilities in africa or in siberia around the world and so their policies are to try to have free free flow capital no interference uh from governments in terms of capital and profit taking so that that is a an important thing to understand this that this capital is so heavily concentrated um that back in 2017 less than 200 people controlled 41 trillion dollars worth of wealth so they were the ones making the decisions about how it would be invested so if they invest in armament companies or they and they invest in everything and and their biggest problem is they have more capital than they have safe places to invest um and that's where government will step in and try to open up investment opportunities for them and uh to try to protect protect these interests um intelligence agencies work on their behalf governments work on their behalf um it's not like these elites in these companies will tell the president to say you do this whosoever president in the country knows that they have to maintain and support uh global capital and that they're going to um do what they can to protect that and not see a decline economic decline so the the conflict is that they have so much capital they don't have enough places to do it to invest it that are safe and back in 2008 you know we saw kind of an economic collapse for a while because these companies um were doing speculative investments on subprime mortgages and uh lost a lot and that became it literally came close to collapsing the economy in the world so um that kind of concentration of wealth only increases the risks of of global economic collapse because very few people are trying they're all beating each other they're invested in each other and they're not doing anything they're not doing anything they're not doing anything so we're talking about in 2017 41 trillion dollars uh that were managed by less than 200 people and those people interact with the world trade organization the world bank their own governments uh making policy decisions um and or making recommendations for policy decisions that governments can do and governments respond to that they're more than willing to try to get them to um continue to grow and they're more than willing to try to get them to um continue to grow and expand the difficulty that arises is um a lack of safe investment opportunities um these companies are investing in things that hurt us um whether it's food or arms or um and you know thing companies that are affecting the environment uh burning coal companies that are digging coal and burning it all of that is invested by these in giants and they help make it happen so we're seeing in environmental concerns um that threaten the human species in in the world today we're seeing uh wars um and the war in ukraine is is one example of that but we're seeing the preparation for war expenditures of mass billions of dollars on military expenditures and these are when we say that you say we're going to spend a to ukraine to fight the russians uh that money is being spent to buy products from companies that make weapons um and or even in some cases private mercenaries that are that are engaged in this war and so this violence these wars are very profitable and so continuing to prepare for war um is in many ways more profitable than trying to invest in companies that are over already and they're not getting good returns so we it's a massive conflict that threatens um human existence what a crazy system
Speaker 1we live within i mean this might seem like a really naive question but i'm going to throw it out there anyway i mean why is the whole house of cards dependent upon there being such a extreme concentration of wealth right at the top of the pyramid why is that so essential to the way that the world's economy is structured i mean we've got a fixed amount of capital in a closed system so why is it so important that that capital is all concentrated in one tiny percentage of the world's population why couldn't that same amount of money within the same closed system be distributed more equally and why can't that money be pooled into things that benefit the bulk of humanity regardless of whether it makes a profit or not rather than just building up an up and up and up within the ever diminishing confines of less than one percent of the world's
Speaker 2population well we could um the one percent could accept um a philosophical approach to protect the environment to have shared governance uh to have sustainability um and some of them have began to recognize that we're facing world economic collapse and environmental destruction and the threat of nuclear war and they've been forming what's called egs environment government and social policies within these companies these investment companies that are supposedly um designed to prevent world economic collapse world environmental collapse because they're worried about it these are people and they have children and grandchildren and they're worried about the long-term capital but they also want to protect their investment to protect private capital and continue to see it grow and the more it grows the more power they have in terms of where they can decide to invest it and engage with it um so some of them have a conscience to speak of but um and part of that is reflected by the world economic forum and their effort towards a great reset of capitalism so they're saying we're going to maintain capitalism it's going to become more conscious it's going to be um bring about human betterment but unfortunately the x that the opposite of happening is is happening there's greater poverty in the world there's greater uh threats of war um the environment is facing you know climatic you know change and massive change so i think we're looking at uh tampa you know in the next 24 48 hours is going to be heavily impacted by this massive hurricane that hasn't happened there in 100 years
Speaker 1oh man oh this is one of the things that really confuses me is because as you said you know they these are people you know they've got no children and grandchildren and you know hopes and dreams and you know they're also highly educated people as you show in the book you know they've all been through elite universities and private privately educated so they're not unintelligent so how do they marry that conflict between an awareness of the fact that they're not intelligent and they're not intelligent of their role in the world and the consequences of it whilst clinging to a belief that capitalism still works you know when it quite clearly doesn't they actually
Speaker 2believe in the trickle-down theory people actually believe that they believe that they're they're they're by concentrating wealth that they will be able to grow and expand and help you know eliminate poverty in the world and that but that's simply not true uh world poverty is is is massively increased um people are becoming you know we have huge homeless problems there's all kinds of social that we're faced with and um the their continued concentration of wealth is a factor that uh directly contributes uh to all the negative things that are happening in society and they
Speaker 1must know that though surely or do they live in such a bubble
Speaker 2i think that they do or they or they know it to a certain extent but you know they believe that capitalism can continue to grow and expand and then that will trickle down give people jobs and and really make the world a better place um that's simply not true all the indicators are that we're going in the opposite direction and you know that we are faced with catastrophic um potential or you know increased mass famine um environmental destruction um destroying of the oceans and and the inability to use land the use of pesticides and and growth products and agriculture that are concentrated for more return um it's it's um not a good scenario and so as we you know people who study transnational capitalist class they realize that the world bank and the world economic forum and the um uh various um world organizations are being established to help facilitate capital concentration get um private wealth controlling and making decisions worldwide and protecting that wealth um and allow it's and it's moving in the direction of a you know a global class of people like one percent or less uh that are the elites and uh they all have similar lifestyles they went to similar schools um they're all worth billions if you're on the board of directors of one of these um uh giant uh giants you're getting a salary of at least a quarter million and you get free stock right so you could be you know a person with you know a few hundred thousand dollars worth of wealth um and you get placed on one of these boards in a couple of years you're going to be a multi-millionaire
Speaker 1well you refer to him in the book as the transnational capitalist class so this is essentially a class isn't it
Speaker 2it's an it's it's a global capital class right because they know each other they interact globally and even in china there's more billionaires than there are in the u.s and their wealth is highly concentrated as well but their government is managed by the politburo and the communist party um whereas ours is maintained through citizens united and private capital buys people and they win elections and it's so it's strongly influenced by private capital
Speaker 1well i grabbed a bit from the book which i thought highlighted the severity of this in terms of the numbers and in the book you say that uh the transnational capitalist class is essentially 17 mega firms of these 17 mega firms there are 199 core individuals that control them now of these less than 200 individuals 70 percent are male 84 percent are white almost all of them have attended elite private schools and elite universities 59 of them are from the usa and the rest are mostly from europe most of them serve as advisors or members of the imf the wtf the world bank the g7 the g20 the wef the trilateral commission and the council of foreign relations and many many others that you can think of now we're talking about less than 200 people here man now that is a lot of power and a lot of wealth to be concentrated in the hands of less than 200 people working for less than 18 companies in the world like that to me is absolutely terrifying when you think of the power that they wield over policies and constructs that affect the lives of everybody else on the planet i mean that is terrifying isn't it
Speaker 2yeah i think so i mean um it's such a concentration of wealth it's very undemocratic this is privatized capital um in the book we have a letter to the global power elite as a postscript and we're basically telling them that they cannot continue it's no longer acceptable for you to believe that you can manage capitalism to grow its way out of growth growth inequalities we all face the environment cannot accept more pollution and waste and civil unrest everywhere is inevitable at some point so um we're seeing you know more books now where like um william robinson's book last year was called the global civil war and he's saying that he's a transnational capitalist class scholar he wrote the introduction to giants and he's at uc santa barbara and someone who's really made their career focusing on who the global power elite are and you know he's there's we're saying that um this this cannot continue and it's signed by 109 or people or so um including um uh including william robinson and and a number of others that uh recognized that this problem is ongoing and it is not it's not being reversed and no matter what level of consciousness they have and this whole egs environmental governance and social awareness uh has been in the last particularly since covid over the last couple years all these companies are starting to say well we're more concerned about this now and we're gonna try to do better and that but uh the structure of cap concentrated wealth and capitalism is literally irreversible without some major intervention um and democratic uh movements uh that you know create laws that use that capital for human betterment instead of private wealth
Speaker 1well i have a lot of like causes highlighted on the podcast you know from activists and campaigners investigative journalists and politicians etc and every single issue seems to end at that same point of we need systemic change like all of these things are going to be easily remedied if we just had the political action to do so i mean just off the top of my head there are tons of things we could do to remedy this particular situation you know we can put caps on what one individual can earn relative to everybody else in society or within their organization you know we could raid the tax havens we could put regulations in place to say that the bulk of the produce from collective society gets distributed in a manner that benefits that society rather than floating upwards towards the top one percent you know these are all things that could happen tomorrow we just need politicians and governments to enact it into law and then there it is yeah
Speaker 2except there's other people pushing the other way black rock the world's largest money manager uh received a letter from 19 republican state attorneys accusing them of using a climate agenda ahead of clients uh profits and um and that they are accusing black rock of boycotting like coal companies and this and so black rock has said that they have never dictated admissions targets to any company and it doesn't coordinate but their wealth they're eight nine trillion now that they're managing if they try to cut back on they're going to get sued right uh and so the i call them the neocons or the far right wing republicans and economic people and power in various places are challenging any effort to not allow you know full-blown capital to invest anywhere it wants to and to get good returns for their clients and um that that's scary because these companies they can make decisions i mean i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i looked up uh a couple weeks ago you know there's a very big concern with um private uh weapons in the u.s there's all these school shootings there's mass murders uh ar-15s and and uh semi-automatic uh weapons of various sorts there's only a couple of companies that make those and there's black rock right in the top of of their investors and and and jp borg in shape so if you're saying well how come there's there's so many ar-15s and people could get them um the states allow people to buy them and any effort to restrict them i'm challenged by people who are concerned with the second amendment um and so these these these giant companies are part and contributing to uh the ability to people to buy these weapons and then shoot up their neighborhoods yeah um it's it's quite concerning when you talk about it and um so i what's what we're moving towards now is identifying what's happened since 2017 The Giants book was based on 2017 data, and most of that data came from the Giants, the transnational capital corporations, came from their own proxy reports. So if you read, if they're a public corporation, they have to issue an annual report. And in that report is not only who are their board of directors, how much they're paid, how much stock they hold, what their main policies are. And so you can read all this and identify, you know, who's doing what. You can check their investment portfolios and see where they're invested, what kind of, you know, coal or environmental destructive companies they're invested in. Or weapons. Or companies that they're invested in. And or, and how that wealth continues to concentrate. And that 80% of the world, people live on less than $10 a day. And half the world lives on less than $3 a day. So this 1% that owns almost half the world's wealth, and then manage the top 20% of the people. If you're a multimillionaire, you can stick a million dollars in one of these companies, and they'll invest it for you and get you a 7% return. So there's, you know, thousands, I think there's 60 million millionaires, and their money is being managed by these private companies. And there's only, you know, the 31 Giants now is double. And so it's certainly concentrated. But of the 17 companies that were Giants in 2017, eight of them, the same, same eight companies now have more wealth than they did in all of collectively in 2017. Jesus Christ. So, you know, that's over $50 trillion. The top eight. That's insane. Companies today have $50 trillion. So what we're doing. As I'm building a new book, which hopefully be done in the spring, it'll be called Titans of Capital. And we'll be looking at what's happened to the 17 companies that we identified five years ago. Their boards of directors are still about half the same people. People die, they retire, they go to other places, but they're replaced by people of very similar backgrounds. You know, wealth, income, family connections. And, and, and private universities and, and social interactions through various private clubs like the Bohemian Club, I'm going to write about this book, facilitate a transnational class interaction with a few million people in the world. And then these places like Davos, where the World Economic Forum hosts, hosts three or 4,000 people every year. And then their policies that they're trying to engage. With and, you know, help improve. They're talking about human betterment. But in reality, the, they actually are continuing to concentrate wealth and that leads to greater famine and uneasiness and wars and civil resistance to that kind of privatization. So if half the world is living on $3 a day, and the rest of the, you know, the rest of the world is living on, on tech. $10 a day, this inequality is, is going to stress out the world, so to speak in very negative ways. Yeah. So, you know, the famine that we're seeing in Africa, the continued global warming threats, massive storms and environmental damage. All of that is facility is increasing and, and being driven by wealth concentration, trying to get a return and force returns in whatever place that they possibly can. And that's threatening to all of us.
Speaker 1It seems to me that it's sociopath, sociopathy and insanity manifested through economics. It's essentially what it seems to me that this is completely undurable and unsustainable. And there has to be a breaking point. If not, then the whole, the whole planet that all of us live on.
Speaker 2A breaking point is inevitable. Yeah. It's inevitable. And people who are billionaires or millionaires and have this, these assets want to continue to, to concentrate. There is a kind of social pathology that goes with that. You know, I'm getting mine. I'm going to increase my wealth. I'm going to share with my children. Um, and hopefully we'll have plenty of, uh, police state capabilities within our class to control the, uh, masses of people worldwide so that nation states, um, literally become, um, population containment zones. And, you know, have, have their own military. And their own police force to control, um, mass resistance or people who are starving and trying to, um, force taxation or force, uh, rich folks to share their will. Um, they're not planning to do that. They want to continue to concentrate and grow wealth. Um, and that's destroying the world.
Speaker 1That's insane. Well, it's literally. It seems to me that it is ideological fanaticism. Is it capitalistic fanaticism or fundamentalism? Would you describe it that way? I mean, it seems to be a completely blinkered religious, almost belief in the virtues of capitalism, despite the glaring evidence to the contrary.
Speaker 2Well, James, you're saying it's saying it quite well. I mean, that's what the giants book said five years ago. And it's, it's gotten, all I can tell you is it's gotten worse. And that the wealth concentration is greater, um, they're manipulating, um, governments and, uh, you know, worldwide bribery occurs often. It's, it's a corrupting influence to human survival. Right. I can't say, I don't think I can say it any other way.
Speaker 1No, well, you said it, you said it brilliantly throughout the whole book, you know, so, um, you know, people need to go and read the book really. But what I love about the book is that it's, it, I listened to this conversation today. It could. Sound very heavy and, and almost academic because of the research based nature of it, but it's actually really, really readable. I whizzed through it in like a few days and it's absolutely fascinating. But what you've managed to do is condense all of this really meticulously researched information and communicated it in a really readable and quite simplified way without losing any of the, um, the thrust of the, of the points that you're making. I think it's very unique in that way. Um, I, it's very readable book and it was mindboggling. It's one that I'll keep going back to because one of the things I found fascinating was at no point when I'm looking through these biographies of these, um, you know, the, these top 389 individuals at no point did I see a mention of Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, or any of the guys that we know of as being like the richest guys in the world. In fact, as I skimmed through the book, I hardly recognized any of them.
Speaker 2They're in there, but they're in there in a minor way. I mean, yep. Gates. Uh, uses his foundation, try to influence, um, world health or world health issues. Um, but, and he's, and he's well known, but it's the decision makers around how these trillions of dollar of capital are invested. I mean, Bill Gates is a billionaire, but if you're sitting on a board of directors of a corporation that has $8 trillion worth of wealth, uh, in many ways you have more influence on capitalism than Bill Gates. Right. Or Bezos. Yeah. They get attention because they're individuals and, um, you know, people are, they, they say, you know, oh, we all want to be rich. And that's simply not true. Um, most people want to have security and a way of getting by. But if you start acquiring money just to have it, um, and, and massively, you know, privately own it and, and benefit and, and not do use it. In any way to help other people. Um, that's, I think, wrong, morally wrong. Yeah. And we need to require these elites through, um, democratic social movements at a state level and an international level as well. Require them to move towards human betterment in using that capital that benefits. It benefits everybody in the world, but it's become privatized and they continue to make that, um, even greater extent. I mean, Gates, people like him, are they're more concerned with overpopulation that, you know, a billion people or eight billion people is too many for the planet, which is partially correct. But people have have babies and children as a means of for most people in the world. It's a means of old age protection. Yeah. So if you have five kids and you get old, you can't work or anything, the kids will take care of you. And that's a strategy that's been around since human beings have been on this earth. And, you know, so you build your family and your clan and you work together. But the idea that one person would have all the wealth in that clan is just unheard of philosophically or historically or anthropologically. In world history. We've reached that point today and in less than 200 years of concentrated capitalism worldwide that has so massively concentrated and kept it that way that the inequality is is is terminal for the world. And we have to use democratic social movements. Awareness is. Ultimately, to force through nonviolent social movements would be my preference, but ultimately force these elites. So part of my effort is to identify who these titans are. And that's the terminology we're using in the next book. And we're looking at the top 10 investment companies, which now will have close to 50 trillion dollars worth of wealth. And they're basically the same ones that were there in 2017. They're basically the same people managing them. They lose one or two on their board each year. So their boards are half, still about half the same people. And they are making public relations statements about their concerns for the environment and democracy and governments. But in reality, the money is not being put to that kind of use. So we have the facilitators in the book, the giants, there are the elite policy planners, and there's organizations like the Atlantic Council, which is the private, non-governmental advisory body to NATO and the world capitalist countries. The Atlantic Council puts out reports on a regular basis. They have a couple hundred members. They have a board of directors of 15 or so individuals. And they're the ones saying it's time for Putin to be removed. But they've been saying that for 10 years. And he's fully aware of that. And they're the ones that were establishing a policy that spent $4 billion. um to promote the governmental change in the ukraine and um push out uh pro so a pro-russian government and uh bring back uh basically the elements of the of the fascist government that had been there and and fought against russia during world war ii hmm and uh so of course putin was was upset by that or so we're you know anybody in the kremlin who sees that kind of money being spent on the ukraine saw the collapse of the soviet union saw nato expand even further to their borders and poland and and um the other countries uh near them threatening um militarily and economically you and pushing for the the collapse of of russia not just the soviet union and a regime change and they just write that and say we want to see this happen we want putin to be pushed out and he reads this stuff where they are the they read it and they know exactly what the atlantic council is trying to make happen and uh this is all private private money um that funds the atlantic council and um big corporations are involved in the and then of course they are own the corporate media so the book in in chapter six talks about the you know public relation firms and and global media yeah big private pr firms are packaging what the world is finding out on television news and and uh and newspapers terrifying and they're all owned and and controlled by the um global power elite the titans of capital um have economic control over the over the world's uh media and and uh so we you know you don't see criticisms of capitalism on most media shows they just they just don't go there
Speaker 1that chapter the ideologues is absolutely terrifying it was one of the most terrifying ones for me because even though i've read books like manufacturing consent by noam chomsky and things um just seeing those same people popping up time and time again on the boards and the the ceos of these massive pr and media companies also attending you know davos the trilateral commission and all the same clubs and you just get to see that time and time again it's the same clubs it's the same people and they all infiltrate all layers of this whether it's the the financial side of it or the media side of it or the military industrial side of it it's the same tiny tiny handful of really really rich powerful people that permeate
Speaker 2all of it and and and there's been the continued financialization of capitalism meaning um money today is not in most of the money today is not invested in productive activities so if you invest in gm gm's building cars but most of the capital today is free-floating speculative capital and so people are making money by um and betting on the you know the value of of money and will will the end um change relative to the dollar or financialization is literally the putting the monetary value on everything in the world and this um that monetary value is is controlled by increasingly fewer and fewer people that dominate um where which direction the world is going yeah and um they they own and control the corporate media they own and control um private military companies um like blackrock which is one of the largest and gps is one of the other large ones and they can put mercenaries or privatized police anywhere in the world and um control um populations uh violently so that kind of you know ability to literally kill anybody in the world they choose um makes me think that we just literally have to have a non-violent social resistance of non-cooperation yeah with global capital until they agree to start sharing it and doing the things with that wealth that are needed to maintain the world and keep children from starving and uh and protect us from uh diseases um that uh threaten our our whole existence well i want
Speaker 1to come on to um when we wrap up i want to ask you about change and what can people do but i'm still i'm still stuck on this the the idea a lot the ideology side of it because i just can't wrap my head around how intelligent worldly people cannot understand the conflict here and i know that obviously all of these people are educated in many of the same places and i'm sure that they're all taught the same ideology in these institutions in these private and elite universities what role do the universities play in that and why i mean i can't imagine that the professors such as yourself you know who to teach at these universities where some of these giants come through i can't imagine that they are part of the elite you know so what what adherence do they have to this ideology which is quite plainly
Speaker 2flawed well those that support global capitalism concentration and really believe that there will be an economic wealth will grow so rapidly that it'll save the world they are the ones of course that elites will invite to be speakers and be on policy boards and that if you don't have that kind of support or you're not taking that kind of a position you can be a professor at a university you can talk to 100 kids a year and that's not going to bring about major change in the world right um i was been a professor um for 26 years at sonoma state university it was basically a working class university, had lots of great students, but not any that are capable of organizing resistance that will impact the global power elite, at least not in any immediate way. So that's one of the reasons I wrote the book, because I look at how concentrated wealth is, how much more it's concentrated in the last five years. And we're going in a direction that inevitably is unsustainable. Environmentally, economically, socially, it's unsustainable. And we are faced with either the possible environmental, economic collapse, or perhaps both simultaneously. With efforts by governments and intelligence agencies to repress resistance, population resistance, and massive deaths from local resistance and civil wars. That is our future, if we can't force those kinds of changes to come about immediately. So I believe. I believe that by writing this book, by identifying the people that are making this happen, none of them are evil people per se, they're probably all nice to their dog and their grandkids, but they control wealth and resources that should belong to the world. Yeah. I mean, they're coming from the world, but now less than 1% of the people have gained control. So in a way, it's going back to feudalism, where most of us are peasants with very little ability to affect anything in the world. And there's the royalty, or the people I will call the titans in the next book, titans of capital, who are in control, who dominate, and believe that they're doing the best thing for the world. And, of course, for themselves. And that is dangerous. And we have to call them out on it. And we need to identify who this is and how they're engaged. And it's been shown, like Jamie Dimon at Chase Manhattan, the people have protested in front of us. In front of his home. And he has made some efforts to have environmental consequences addressed by their investment policies. There are people, of course, that resist that quite openly. And, you know, we see some efforts, but it's not enough. It's not fast enough. And one or two individuals are not going to be able to make this happen. And they have to be. Um, Democratic. It's going to have to be people making decisions about the resources in the world that are privately held and either acquiring those via taxation and government control or literally occupying those places of power.
Speaker 1Or it's going to happen the other way because people are going to, the temperature is going to get so hot and it's going to burst. And there's going to be mass civil unrest and rioting and violence and destruction. Because it's people aren't just, people aren't going to take it anymore. They're going to get too desperate. You can see that happening already over here in Britain with the energy crisis and the cost of living crisis and, you know, Brexit. And, you know, the middle class is now getting squeezed. You know, the poor are always getting squeezed. But as soon as the middle class start getting squeezed, but now that's, you know, that's, that's half the population right there.
Speaker 2And, and the conservative right wing governments that are now in Italy are basically in, in Great Britain, Germany. Um, are supportive of global capital and want to protect it. And they will, the ideologists will blame immigrants and, um, for, you know, people that are fleeing and trying to, um, make a, save themselves from violence and environmental destruction around the world. Um, millions and millions of people are, are moving with their. Feet and resisting with their bodies and their presence, um, in the capital wealth countries, um, that kind of repression could get quite severe and extremely deadly for, for many of us.
Speaker 1Yeah, there could be a breaking point coming, I think, you know, because as soon as you see this pattern of, um, a move, a shift to the right, which is happening, as you say, all over Europe, um, I think that's symptomatic of something further down the line. Coming, you know, a shift in society. I think the shift to the right is often an indicator of anger and a sense of, uh, disenfranchisement and disillusionment. And I think that can often be expressed in pretty ugly ways that are far from democratic and peaceful.
Speaker 2Yeah. Yeah. I'm afraid that you're right. And, um, it's going to take millions of people with shared, with shared consciousness of what needs to happen. And a building. And a building of democratic sharing. We also, we also call that socialism, uh, of the world's wealth and making sure that that child born in a deprived country has an opportunity to live and grow up and bring and contribute to humanity through their work and their, um, and their actions.
Speaker 1Yeah. I mean, the, the solutions to all of this have existed for a long time. It's not rocket science, is it? You know, we, we know what the social safety nets are. We know what the, um, but you said the dirty word yourself, socialism, you know what I mean? Socialism works in the favor of society. Capitalism works in the favor of capital, you know? So, I mean, the, the solutions that are tried and tested, they, they do work. Um, you know, I live in a country that used to have socialist, um, economic principles, you know, national health service. We, university education and nationalized energy and nationalized public transport and stuff. You know, these, these are not complicated or esoteric concepts. You know, they're tried and tested and they work in the interests of the bulk of, of society. And, um, you know, they're there for the taking, but they've been stolen and, um, and locked away by a sociopathic, less than 1% class of ideological, religiously fundamentalist madmen. You got to write a book yourself. I did write one, but it was all about myself.
Speaker 2I recommend, I recommend a new one that just came out by William Robinson. Can global capitalism endure? Okay. And, um, it just came out. It's a, it's literally a three hour read if that, but he's laying out all the weaponized, uh, transnational capital class weaponizing ideology, weaponizing central control. Um, and, and saying that inevitably, um, capitalism will collapse and he, he's quite good at explaining why. And, um, I think my book and the one I'm working on now is going to be very complimentary to that.
Speaker 1Right. Thanks for the tip off, man. I'm, I will be buying that bad boy tonight and adding it to my ever increasing bedside table reading collection. I recommend it. Well, I know I don't have you for much longer. So I'm going to try and there's tons of things I wanted to ask you and I don't have time to ask you all of them. But one of the things I definitely wanted to squeeze in before I let you go is the book focuses mostly around the Western elite. And I know that that's obviously where most of the power in the world does reside, but we are seeing as far as I can see anyway, a changing dynamic around the world. Obviously I'm talking about the rise of China and India and Russia. I mean, how do they fit in with this? I'm sure they've got their own elites as well. Um, does that slot in and compliment with Western elitism and capitalism or does it pose a threat to it?
Speaker 2The biggest perceived threat by the Western, um, policy groups, the Atlantic council and trilateral commission is Russia. Right. Um, China is an economic threat. Russia really isn't. But Russia has their 5,000 nuclear bombs and vast resources. That, um, could be developed and they want them to be developed. China has made huge transitions and building a middle class, uh, making eliminating poverty in rural settings. I mean, the transformation that's happened in the last 40 years in China is just, um, tremendous and very positive for most people. Yes, there's still a single party. Um, Bullet Bureau and a class of elites. Um, but their goal is to build economic stability and improvement for everybody in the country. That is not the goal of the West. The goal of the West is continue to concentrate wealth in the 1%. Right. So, you know, the Chinese billionaires, uh, don't have any economic, they can't use their economic wealth to, uh, try to make, uh, governmental changes and, and, uh, uh, control the government that they're just not allowed to do that. Um, so I think that we will, I'm part of this next book is, and William Robinson really said, you got to bring China in. And so I will be putting together, um, a whole, I've already started a big file on China and their economics and that kind of thing. So. That'll be part of the book. I'm going to write by April this year.
Speaker 1Yeah. Oh, I can't wait to read it, man. It sounds fascinating. And what is Russia's standing in all of this then? I mean, you know, I can't tell what's going on with Russia with them anymore. Is it, is it communist, capitalist, something in between a kleptocracy or what's going on?
Speaker 2They're, they're pretty much capitalist, um, in the sense that the oligarchs acquired the wealth of the Soviet union, um, and privatized it. So there's an elite class in, uh, wealth owners in, in Russia, they had start. Yeltsin was allowing us investments there and basically Putin reversed that. And, um, so that free flowing us, uh, global capital going into Russia protected and safe, um, has, has basically been reversed and it became, uh, Russian oligarchs that were controlling the wealth and the investments in Russia. There was a huge decline. Of course, in working class, um, decisions. Um, but that's been improving over the last decade. So Putin has been very aware that they have to allow, uh, a working class to have some growth and achievement and that are the West ideology. NATO's, uh, approach has always been to see Russia, um, become fully capitalist and allow for private capital be invested there. And versus, and they just don't, not anymore Yeltsin did, but they don't anymore. And, uh, we're still there, you know, they're, they're a big influence. There's still a billion dollars. Um, even today with the war going on, there's us is still buying a billion dollars a month worth of, of Russian products and resources and, uh, groups like black rock and the big banks and the investment companies. Yeah. They just have offices in China. So the Chinese billionaires can invest in black rock or allow their money to be invested in and involved. So I'm really need to, I will be looking at that dynamic as part of the next book to see how close the, um, asset management companies are in terms of cooperative working capital, uh, in terms of China and eventually Russia. But, um, that's concerning the U S during, during the Cuban missile crisis, a lot of people don't know this, but John Pilger laid it out quite clearly. Um, the U S, um, nuclear forces, uh, were ready to fire on Russia if they brought missiles into Cuba, which they had, and we found out about it and it became a, uh, a world crisis of came very close to it. It was a global war, um, that is still possible, um, if the U S continues to militarily try to dominate, uh, both Russia and, and China, uh, China has one or two foreign military bases, uh, Naval shipyard in Sri Lanka. The U S has 800 bases worldwide, completely surrounding China and Russia and ready, quite ready to, uh, destroy them. So during the Cuban missile crisis, the U S forces not only had targeted Russia, but the policy was to also target China and had it gone to nuclear war, then we would have taken out every, uh, every Chinese major city and destroyed them, even if they weren't attacking
Speaker 1us. Jesus Christ.
Speaker 2So, uh, the anti, the feelings of anti-communism, um, were paramount in American and NATO European elite classes, um, and in many ways, very dangerous and they continue to concentrate military power to threaten Russia and to threaten, um, China and, and of course, Venezuela, Iran, Cuba and North Korea as well. If you don't play the capital game, you're not safe. But nobody is safe. Yeah. No, I, I agree. Jesus. It's just terrifying on so many different levels. And that's why I think the power of your book is so important and more people I hope will go and buy
Speaker 1the book after reading this, because I think in looking at the scale of the problem, being able to whittle it down to the actual names of the individuals, the human beings that we're talking about. The abstract institutions or notions or concepts, actual, the actual people that we're talking about. You've identified them and explored them and explained them in this book. And I think that is such a powerful starting point for clarity of moving forward with some desperately needed urgent action.
Speaker 2Yeah. These people, they have families, they have homes, they have, um, offices, um, mostly is very, very hard to find, get an email address for them directly or find out there. And that wasn't my goal. I, I, you could use tax records to find out where their homes are, but, um, that wasn't my goal. My goal is to say, okay, these are the people that if you know them, or we can need to talk to them and they need to, um, be making policy decisions that benefit the world, not the 1% and the billionaires and millionaires they represent.
Speaker 1So what needs to happen then in order to, um, to move towards a movement for change? I mean, it seems to me as if we are up against an unstoppable. Force here, that's got the governments, the military, the media, you know, the educational system and, and all of the money in the world in its pocket. So what can we do and, you know, do we stand a chance,
Speaker 2uh, democratic social movements of non-violent non-cooperation and the identification of the most powerful and a challenging of
Speaker 1them directly. But what specifically can people get involved with, you know, when they get up tomorrow, what, what, what action can they take? Is it joining a protest movement or a campaign group? Is it lobbying the representatives? Is it, um, civil disobedience and non-cooperation all the, all the above, all of the above,
Speaker 2right? But most of the people in the world just, they're just getting by, you know, if you're living on $10 a day, you're not, you don't have any capabilities and you may have to work two jobs to, to, to do it. So for those of us, academics, policy makers, researchers. We have to identify and make very clear what's going on in the world and who are the people that can, that could, could, could change it, that could, could make a difference. And we see some minor efforts. The EGS movements are, um, most of the companies now in the world have some policy statements about that, um, but they still continue to do very negative things and the ideology from, or the media. Uh, is not going to expose them when it's privately owned by them as well.
Speaker 1Well, we've got a tough challenge ahead of us, but we've got to make it work because as you say, you know, if we don't do it peacefully and democratically, it's, it's going to blow up of his own accord. So we're at a crossroads right now from the way that I see it. Um, and I, I, I applaud you for the book that you've written, which is an absolutely essential and indispensable tool in the, in the, um, the movement towards a hopeful, peaceful and democratic change. So thank you so much for, for putting together. It's been a brilliant book and I can't wait for the next one. You said it's called Titans.
Speaker 2The working title right now is, is, uh, Titans of Capital. Giants were the corporations when I said giants and the global power elite, the giants were the trillion dollar investment companies. The Titans will be the people who are on the board of directors and I'm going to go with the top 10, uh, investment companies and they're going to be, they're currently have about $50 trillion that they're investing.
Speaker 1And we're looking at what they, uh, a release perhaps late next year.
Speaker 2Uh, that's the, I have a concept of stories press was to get it to them by April, May. Uh, yeah, it'll probably be a, uh, about a year from now.
Speaker 1I can't wait. Can I come quick enough for me for Peter? Thank you so much. I know. I promised you I'd do an hour. We've just gone a bit over, so I'm going to have to let you, I could literally ask you questions and pick your brains all night long, but I know that I can't do that.
Speaker 2So it's been, it's fun. I, it's good. I haven't done many interviews. I've been saying, actually saying no to most folks. Cause I really have to concentrate on getting this book done, but, uh, you, you intrude me it was london and i said okay fine let's do it well i was
Speaker 1very persistent i think you very politely uh relented to my relentless nagging i think is what happened all right well peter phillips thank you so much for stopping by and blowing our minds today we all really appreciate it and we appreciate you and everything you do thanks for the incredible book giants by peter phillips is out now peter phillips thank you so much for joining us and i can't wait for the next book best wishes with the writing and hopefully we'll speak to you when that one comes around okay james thanks a lot cheers peter speak to you soon bye-bye bye professor peter phillips ladies and gentlemen put it together for him what do you think of that mind-blowing stuff huh i can't praise this book highly enough i've never seen anything quite like it where he's actually just like a directory of the world's elite the the string pullers you know these are the guys and i promised at the start that i would give you some of the names of the guys that i would give you now i'm not going to rattle off you know nearly 400 names or whatever on a podcast that would just be boring and pointless right but i'm gonna i'm gonna rattle through a little selection and let's see how many of these people any of you have heard of right there's a few there's a few familiar faces in there right but i guarantee you that most of you have not heard of 99 of the names that i'm about to reel off right so get a pen and paper and scribble some of these down and just research some of these dudes just put one into google right and just do some reading and be like wow this dude is a man of his word and he's a man of his word and he's a man of his word tons of different policy groups and company boards and think tanks and governments and oh and he happens to be absolutely loaded as well so get your greg palace investigative journalist hat on get your pen and papers and scribble down some of these bad boys you ready for it okay here we go tim diamore sharon l allen ablatif al-khamad michael ashley sergio balbino thomas j baltimore oliver bait james a bell iris bonnet jack bovinder crandall bowles frank bramble tim breeden mark brydent william dudley roger ferguson jacob frankel paul krugman christian neuer larry fink james diamond john mcfarlane axel a weber jane harman carla hills beau ledegart mario monti louis rubio peter sutherland paul volker thomas l blair richard burton ronald freeman sherry goodman john huntsman jeff dukes rupert murdoch thomas robb summoner redstone and loads and loads and loads more of dudes that you've never heard of just see what i'm saying it's not bezos it's not trump it's these sneaky dudes behind the scenes you could walk past him in the street tomorrow and not know it man but these people literally form the policies and the constructs within which the rest of us on the entire planet have to live within our governments can't make policies unless they conform to what these guys want they are the elite if you want to know who the elite are by giants by peter phillips right now and then let's knock our heads together and figure out what the hell we're going to do about it because if we don't do something soon there won't be a planet to protest on and on that happy note i'm going to bid you farewell for another week it's great to be back again i hope you've all been awesome in my absence and don't forget if you enjoy these podcasts please do subscribe follow leave me a rating leave a review send me some suggestions of other interesting people that i should get on and talk to have an awesome week be awesome stay awesome be awesome to others and i shall see you next week with an episode which i think is going to ruffle a few of your feathers which of course makes me very happy so tune in for that one i'll see you next week see ya
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