How To Fix The Future

from the KPFK Studios in Southern California it's the Ralph Nader Radio Hour [Music] welcome to the Ralph Nader radio hour my name is Steve Grove and David Feldman is out today but we'll be back next week but we still have the man of the hour Ralph Nader hello Ralph hello hello Steve we have great show again today I know I say that every week but I don't know we keep topping ourselves and even though we call attention to a lot of problems on this program we also like to couple that with solutions for instance last week we spoke to environmentalist Paul Hawken about how to reverse global warming not mitigate it but reverse it and today we continue in that vein this time we ventured back into the digital realm and it's overwhelming influence in our day-to-day lives our first guest today is one of the leading thinkers on the subject of the digital revolution his name is Andrew keen and he has written a book called how to fix the future the Industrial Revolution went through a Reformation in the 20th century in terms of trying to get a handle on things like air and water pollution and working conditions and all the harms to the human body and the planet that our industrial society was causing obviously that fight is ongoing especially in the wake of the deregulation of the Trump era and Ralph's work was a big part of that Reformation mr. keen argues that we need a similar Reformation to get a handle on the digital revolution and he has ideas on how to go about that that will be the bulk of the program but we are also going to take a little time at the end to celebrate the 30th anniversary of a solution that a saved California consumers a hundred and fifty four billion dollars is the 30th anniversary of the passing of prop 103 in California which was a tremendous victory for a grassroots movement over the power of the insurance industry the results is that California drivers used to pay 36 percent more in auto insurance than the national average now pay five percent less we will be celebrating that story with Robert hunter and talking about a few other things with him also he is the director of insurance at the Consumer Federation of America and it wouldn't be a show if we didn't step out for a minute to check in with our corporate crime reporter Russell Mulcahy our big ambitious program today let's start by fixing the future Andrew Keene is one of the world's best-known and controversial commentators on the digital revolution he's the author of four books cult of the amateur digital vertigo the Internet is not the answer and his latest book how to fix the future mr. Keene is executive director of the Silicon Valley innovation salon Future cast and the host of Keene on a popular TechCrunch chat show and in 2015 he was named one of the 100 most connected men by GQ magazine welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour Andrew keen thank you so much thank you indeed Andrew before we get into your book and talk about things that people are really interested in about how to fix things you wrote this book in 2015 the Internet is not the answer where you outlined the damaging economic social political and cultural effects the digital revolution has had over the last 20 years saying that it's making our world more unequal and more unstable which is opposite of what Mark Zuckerberg and others are saying in Silicon Valley do you still believe that three years later absolutely I think when I wrote the book I was probably in the minority people making that kind of observation but today I think most people would agree with me that it's becoming increasingly self-evident I mean in 2012 I wrote a book called digital vertigo which argued that Facebook wasn't a social network it was actually an anti social network and again these things are now I think universally accepted well your book how to fix the future cover such a massive amount of territory that I I'm sorry I have to pick and choose what we're going to discuss but I do want to give you a chance to go over about five categories of how to fix it and you say you call them five key tools one is competitive innovation seconds consumer choice third is regulation fourth the social responsibility and fifties education and let's go for regulation you have stated outright what might be a real taboo in Silicon Valley and you said there can be no innovation without regulation can you explain that let me begin with the caveat I don't think regulation alone works so I think whilst I am strongly in favor of regulation it can only work with the other four categories but certainly the best kind of regulation stimulates innovation the purpose of government regulation is to make a more level playing field the problem in our digital economy at the moment is the playing field is anything but level we have a handful of companies four or five companies now but the most powerful the most highly capitalized companies in the world and they control everything so if you're a startup entrepreneur in Silicon Valley and you want to start a new social network or a search engine or an online store there's no way you're gonna have any success because those spaces are dominated by these multi-billion dollar trillion dollar leviathans who use every means legal and sometimes illegal to crush their opposition name the company name the power you know that Ralph it's obvious Google is the dominant search company Amazon is the dominant online commerce company as well as the sort of infrastructure provider Facebook is the dominant social network Apple is increasingly powerful again another trillion dollar company Microsoft has experienced this kind of interesting Renaissance Oh over the last few years but Apple and Amazon I don't think they have trillion-dollar companies quite at the moment because of the stock market situation but they were earlier this year the first trillion-dollar companies there's nothing wrong with having trillion-dollar companies in itself I'm certainly not against the market now I'm not against you know these companies are in some ways innovative as some people would argue they've sort of innovated at scale I mean what Apple has done is remarkable what I am and Google if done is also remarkable the problem is is that when they use their monopolistic power to strengthen to illegally strengthen other markets they're crushing real innovation so the purpose of real regulation whether it's coming from Europe which of mostly is from someone like Margaret Vesta Garrett the EU is to provide the conditions for fair competition and that's what she's doing for example in investigating Google on three antitrust fronts that's what she's doing when she finds Apple twelve billion dollars for not paying its taxes that's what she's doing when she finds Facebook for not being accountable for the kind of garbage and racism and lies that get published on its platform so she's not picking on these companies she's not picking on capitalism or the free market she's simply trying to establish a fairer playing field and for my book I actually interviewed best ago I think is the great hero or perhaps I should say heroine in this situation but she told me repeatedly her goal is not crushing American companies or crushing innovation or or the digital economy what she wants to do is provide the kind of level playing field to enable startup entrepreneurs particularly in Europe to compete with these companies you know our country used to be number one in any trust enforcement and we pioneered any trust the European Union is a late comer why isn't Washington picking up Iran throw these are US companies well rather you know the answer that question better than I do I think there's a big enough matter explanation which reflects this a dysfunctionality of American politics and government particularly in the context of lobbying and the kind of money being spent in Washington by these digital superpowers they now companies like Google and Apple out spend General Electric they out spend Exxon they out spend any of the other core monoliths so the system's broken clearly when you have huge amount of profitability as these digital companies do they can buy congressmen and they can buy Congress and I think there's another problem as well there's still this kind of illusion particularly unfortunately amongst progressives that somehow the digital economy is better than the analog economy somehow these companies can be rich and good at the same time that was the delusion the lie essentially that I think many founders in Silicon Valley told perhaps themselves or certainly the world that they could be different that's why they their IPOs were different that's why their marketing is so different from traditional corporate companies but these are still for-profit companies whose bottom line is focused on making themselves more profitable and I think one of the things that happen particularly under me and it's easy to blame Trump we can't blame Trump for everything I think one of the things that happened under the Obama administration is that Obama himself was seduced by the promise of Silicon Valley by the supposed new business models of Silicon Valley when you look at the White House logs the person who visited Obama outside his family and small group of advisers more than anyone else was Eric Schmidt who at the time was the CEO and then the executive chairman of Google so I think Obama fell under the gaze he was seduced by the promise of Silicon Valley by the money by the kind of liberal ideology I guess of the valley and so in many ways he turned the blind eye and he filled his administration with ex-google people so I think Obama was I'm a big admirer of him in many ways has much to answer for in his failure to address the antitrust issue and to seriously question why these companies were so powerful and why they were crushing real innovation we're talking with Andrew keen the author of how to fix the future Andrew in the last few months the congressional committees have interrogated the CEO of Facebook in the sea of Google who reluctantly came to Congress they resisted and delayed for months and some of the question was pretty sharp I'm pretty tough Google by the way at to fortify your point has reached 200 full time lobbyists swarming over Capitol Hill mostly 200 what do you think of the quality the questions how much of the genesis of these questions comes from just lack of knowledge and awe and how much comes from fear of the power of these companies well I think it's easy to criticize politicians for being out of touch and that's something that people in Silicon Valley do all the time these politicians don't get digital they're out of touch they don't understand the way the new economy works there's probably some truth to that but there are people in Congress who get it and I think these questions are beginning to address the core issue at the heart of the digital economy or at least the heart of a digital economy dominated by companies like Google and Facebook which relates to their business model I think their business model is profoundly structurally flawed when you give your product away for free and when you're a data company and when you can learn more and more about your users from where they search or what they post then in this so-called free model we're essentially trading our privacy in ourselves for free search or for free social networking and I think that this reality is beginning to become self evident in and outside Washington DC that the business model doesn't work you have to pay for your products and if you pay for your products then you can guarantee security you can't have it both ways you can't have free products and also get everything you want so I think again it's easy to bash these companies it's easy to bash digitally illiterate politicians but I think consumers or citizens have something to answer for to here we're all an together well speaking of consumers one of your tools in terms of how to fix the future is what you call consumer choice and then another one is social responsibility and listeners should know the Andrew keen traveled all over the world here to write this book he met with innovators experts entrepreneurs people who are doing things in other countries that we should consider emulating so let's take consumer choice and the other category social responsibility what I was actually rather inspired by your book and your work on the car industry because I think we're history may not repeat itself but as Mark Twain said it rhymes back in the middle of the sixties of course the American car industry was dominant there was no really Japanese or German car industry at least globally and the American car industry became arrogant and indifferent to the needs of their consumer so as you pointed out in your book unsafe at any speed they produce death trapped on wheels ah it took you as a sort of socially responsible journalist and lawyer to reveal this so I think your view our sort of an example of what needs to be done in terms of the digital economy from the point of view of journalists and lawyers but it also took consumers to wake up to this and they did and they read your book it was a best-seller and that enabled the rise of the Japanese and German car industries which focused much more on security much more on safety we're seeing this now I think consumers are beginning to wake up to the reality of Facebook to the way in which Facebook is corroding our democracy the way in which Facebook has become essentially Big Brother and is watching everything we do and we're seeing I think particularly with younger people a movement to leave Facebook to emancipate ourselves from it consumers need to be more aggressive in the way in which they understand their use of these products they need to read the Terms of Service and they need to understand that if something is for free and they're not paying for it then ultimately probably they're the ones who are paying particularly in the data economy so I think we can look at history whether it's in the car industry or another example I use is the food industry where consumers need to be more demanding and they have to be willing to pay as well they can't have everything the problem I think in our kind of wanna be magical capitalists the misc consumers thing they can have everything they can add stuff for free and that that stuff should be really good we pay for our cars we pay for our rent we pay for our clothing we should pay for our online services and I mean one of the interesting ways to regulate this economy is the passed laws suggesting that these products shouldn't be free it's a rubber surreal idea the companies should be forced to get consumers to pay for their products because in our incredibly complex digital economy is the only way to clarify the relationship between consumer and producer well should these companies pay for the personal data that the people in this country are in Iran we are giving them free so they can sell it to advertisers should it be to weigh their they charge for their services to us but we charge them for their data that's the kind of not that you're a libertarian but I think that's the libertarian Silicon Valley model is that we can all sell our data so we can charge Google every time they they know something about us I prefer the European model what the Europeans of pioneering is something could be general data protection regulation which is a fairly complex body of regulation that came out earlier this year that enables consumers to sort of carry their data around with them the question is not so much the commercial exchange of data but who has access to it who owns it the problem when I use Google or Facebook is when they know something about me I can never get that knowledge back that knowledge should be livable time so so ok so maybe I'll use Google for a few months and they'll know something about me but after say three or four months that data should go away why do they have it seems at least eternal rights to my data and my online behavior so I think we need to really tech thebes of the equation between companies and individuals in terms of the ownership of data and once again that only comes through government because when you listen to a Facebook or a Google someone like from one of these companies on your show they would say oh we don't really own your data oh we don't really sell your data but if you say well what do you really do you would be mystified and ultimately they do sell our data and they do unfortunately own that data so we need regulation particularly something like the GD P R which interestingly enough now is inspiring some people in Washington to say well we need a general data protection regulation in the US as well so the old idea is Europe always lags behind the u.s. u.s. is always advance but Ralph is you know that's certainly not the case when it comes to real innovation or regulation and I think it's Europe on the digital front leading the u.s. us catching up learning from what's happening in Europe this little doubt of that you know I was intrigued on page 257 your book you talked about technological unemployment and how Ober is driving you know once they get where they want they're going to be unemployed a lot of people and right across the board I mean all this technology robotics automation but then a critic of your statement would say wait a minute wait a minute Andrew keen the latest unemployment data shows that we're down to three and a half percent unemployment there's never been more technology never been more automation beyond that we just heard that there are seven and a half million job offerings for the six and a half million unemployed people although they don't talk about the workers who've dropped out and are not considered unemployed and the critic may say it's just not happening they keep warning every decade the robots the automated supply chains all this is going to unemploy all kinds of people there's a huge demand for truck drivers that is not being met now according to the trucking industry they can't find enough truck drivers what do you say about all that it's a really important question it's probably the most important question of the 21st century I was spawned in two ways firstly that criticism is in some ways fair I mean let's face it unemployment rates are and if you want a joke or at least you want a part-time job you can find it and long as presumably you don't have a criminal record which is another subject what I would say though in terms of the architecture of today's digital economy and this is something I dealt with in the Internet's not the answer is we're creating a new class the precariat people who are precariously employed so the problem with companies like uber is that they're not willing to make the commitment the social security commitment the emotional commitment to employment that traditional industrial companies gave so you can drive for uber and anyone can drive for uber but you have no security you have no pension you have no health care or or insurance in case you crash your car and the reality of the uber employment situation of this new precariat whether you're driving for uber or you're renting your cars out on Airbnb a rental your spare room out on Airbnb is it's creating this new underclass or precariat that according to many much research suggests that the typical uber driver when you add up the costs of owning the car and insurance and gas they're actually earning less than the minimum wage and we know what Airbnb is doing to our cities it's compounding the gentrification and the profound inequalities indeed in some European cities like Barcelona Airbnb rentals are banned from the city because of the social damage it's doing so that's the first problem the question isn't so much employment but the kind of employment in this new the architecture of this precariat economy that's emerging that again is compounding the inequalities of our of our early 21st century to make it very much like the mid 19th century in the early age of the Industrial Revolution so that's my first point the second point is a longer term observation now you know as the economists will remind us in the long term we're all dead but the AI revolution will be profound I think that's another crucial intelligence yes so the situation's say we're driving is you're right at the murmur truck driving companies or uber and lyft they're all crying out for drivers but in the next 20 or 25 years driving will be automated it will mean that most trucks and drivers will be driven by robots by algorithms and much of the menial labor of our age whether it's fast-food restaurants or driving will be replaced by the algorithm interestingly enough the same is true of the sort of typical bourgeois professions of law and engineering and accounting and medicine many of those professions are also going to be replaced by the algorithm so in the long term this threat is real in the long term we have to address what we're gonna do in an age where we've created them an algorithm that does what we have historically done and done it much more efficiently and cheaply the question is of course really profound or on two levels firstly because of the implications for employment and secondly if this is indeed the case and the economy remains oligarchic and you have a tiny handful of companies controlling it then the world will be even more nightmarish than it exists today this is a huge question most economists or almost all economists agree the traditional employment is going to be radically disrupted perhaps even decimated ultimately by the artificial intelligence revolution and I talked to a number in my book so in the long term this is a real threat in the short term we need to address the inequalities and in justices of the precariat economy and in this sense I have an example for its Ralph you'll get this of a lawyer in Austin who is fighting over who is using the law to make sure that these companies actually look after their employers their employees because not only is it immoral but a legal responsibility will you talk about the universal basic income as one of the great solutions you talk about Rutger Bregman who is one of Europe's leading champions of the basic minimum income and you also talk about Daniel Straub who actually put the essence of a universal basic income as a referendum in Switzerland you want to discuss that because there are a lot of economists I even conservative economists including the late Milton Friedman who said we've got to have a basic income never mind personally not welfare here and there everybody's got to have a basic minimum income yeah it's a really interesting question Ralph and I have to admit I'm tiny bit ambivalent about it the universal basic income as I'm sure your listeners know is an arrangement where everyone is guaranteed a certain amount of money whether or not they work whether or not the even booked for work now in Silicon Valley this idea is increasingly becoming popular because I think most people realize that AI is going to decimate employment and if people aren't going to be given sort of minimum amount of money to pay their rent and feed themselves and clothe club the families then they're gonna be starving to death they're going to be homeless or they're going to be reporting on the streets so there is some persuasiveness in that argument what I fear though about this ubi arrangement name one of the reasons why it's popular in Silicon Valley is because it does kind of concretize it formalizes inequality the problem in the digital future is that there are going to be some people who are going to be making fortunes as they have been doing and are we going to allow or sort of institutionalize the emergence of a kind of an underclass that lives on a thousand dollars a month because they're not going to be able to work and they have no hope of work so the universal basic income I think is a really interesting question and I understand the arguments in favor of it in overall terms though what I would like to see is a really radical ubi not a thousand dollars a month but three or four thousand dollars a month that would guarantee a decent quality of life and in today's political atmosphere particularly in the u.s. I'm not sure how realistic that is the reality is is that we're looking still at fairly traditional political allusions to economic disruption which is really radical and perhaps in human history unheard of the other question of course that we have a challenge and opportunity is to create work value jobs in the digital future and as I argue particularly in my section on education we need to focus on the things that the algorithm can't do so sure the algorithm might be able to read x-rays it can add stuff up it can beat us in chess and go it can drive vehicles but it can't be empathetic it can't do these kinds of conversations it can't be creative so the focus in education needs to be not on trying to train our kids to compete with the algorithm but to do stuff that the algorithm can't do you know you mentioned in your book the utopians Thomas More and others who who basically go right to the core and they say what is life all about I mean isn't about drudgery and work regardless of the pay or is it a broader definition of happiness it was our second president John Adams who once said and he's not known for his eloquence he once said our generation is made up of statesmen and politicians so our children can become physicians and scientists so their children can become musicians and artists well that has not happened but you make an important point in your pages on education we really have to develop creative stimulus for the youngsters and you talked about 20,000 Montessori schools all over the world they happen to be popular among Silicon Valley executives who are parents and also you talk about the Waldorf School where your own child attended I know a lot of people have heard of Montessori and Waldorf why don't you describe why they are so distinctive especially in a period of technological convulsions yeah quick notes on utopia as you say I bring up Thomas More's utopia book written at the beginning of the sixteenth century many of the issues in mores utopia of unemployment to a meaningful social relations of political authority and inequality even the relations between the sexes is that within in mores utopia so these are new subjects sure the technology is new but the issues particularly as they pertain to politics and justice aren't numerous you know yeah the world of education is interesting and it's particularly ironic that these schools are so popular in Silicon Valley the old assumption was that to succeed in this new digital economy you need to become computer literate so the more devices that exist in classrooms the more kids could get our hands on iPhones and iPads the better but the world of Education is really focused on bringing out the creativity in children ionically early waldorf education doesn't allow not only devices in the classrooms but actually actively discourages kids from using phones and smart pads and computers at home and it's no coincidence these schools are particularly popular in Silicon Valley Steve Jobs the genius who invented the iPhone and the iPad he never allowed those devices in his homes because he knew the kind of impact it would have on his kids so the irony of the future is that the people who will be most empowered will be the analog those sort of empowered with analog education did those who were creative those who have been to alternative schools like the Waldorf School because they're focused as one of the teachers told me for the book they're focused on developing the muscle of creativity and it's that muscle of creativity that can't be replicated by the algorithm now in political terms the challenge is to universalize this kind of education it's all very well having these private Waldorf schools in Silicon Valley where the executives of Facebook or Google can send their kids and spend twenty five or fifty thousand dollars a year that only compounds inequality the challenge is to universalize alternative education systems my daughter my 17 year old goes to a Waldorf School in Rohnert Park in Northern California it's an hour north of San Francisco it's the largest public Waldorf School in the country it's publicly funded so the issue is not just alternative education systems but making that alternative education system Universal and allowing the less privileged access to it the problem in the digital future it's that the privileged understand the problems with this kind of immersion in computer technology and they're the ones who will pay for their children to be liberated from it we need to universalize this and that's why this Waldorf School in Rohnert Park which is called credo is such an interesting model and yeah what about Montessori what's the difference obviously there are more Montessori schools in more countries around the world and it was started by Miss Marta sori back years ago yeah it's interesting both were found at the beginning of the 20th century the waldorf by rudolf steiner who was after the first world war ii's philosopher and the Montessori by Maria Montessori an Italian social reformer it's not always clear what the difference between Montessori and Waldorf is but I think Waldorf focuses most of all on developing the creative talents of children so in a ward off school music and singing and drawing are really prioritized whereas in Montessori schools problem solving is prioritized interestingly enough the two founders of Google brilliant men Larry Page and Sergey Brin they both went to Montessori schools there independently they grew up in different parts of the country but I'm not necessarily against Montessori I think it's an interesting model but I think the Waldorf model of focusing on creativity is given the nature of our digital economy is probably the more interesting one you know I've noted this before Andrew keen we're talking to Andrew keen the author of the book how to fix the future there's something in American culture maybe other cultures when after you talk about the problems he and justices the destructive trends you start talking about solutions both the media and the public tends to get bored we have all kinds of problems in this country about voter suppression and we don't talk about other countries that don't have voter suppression they've got solutions to accurately counting the votes encouraging people to vote we all kinds of disasters financial personal preventable deaths injuries because of our corrupt so-called health care corporate system and we don't look to Canada and Western Europe that save a lot of lives and are much more efficient and cover everybody where we're still without health insurance for 29 million people and underinsured for even larger number of people what has been the reaction to your solution book I mean you go right out right in the beginning how to fix the future are you getting one our studious interviews on NPR and PBS are you getting other than short reviews and snippets and short comments on various programs what's been the media reaction that's a good question I think that the reaction is very different in Europe to the US as as you know I live in California although I think many Americans that you think I live in Europe I spend a lot of my life in Europe in fact over the last few months I've probably been in Europe more than the u.s. in Germany in particular in Holland there's very sort of sympathetic take on my book and the arguments laid out in the book and America people are more ambivalent I don't think we can blame the Internet for this certainly the internet plays a role in your observation too people aren't interested in solutions all they want to do is complain and moan about politicians or large companies but people don't have the patience the intellectual focus to really say okay well what are we going to do about it and that may be the case in our kind of techno saturated culture the problem is is people always want easy solutions so today you you will find people who will argue well the problem with the Internet is it wasn't decentralized so we need to redo centralize it as if technology is the solution some people will say well the solution is transparency so it's blockchain in new technologies like blockchain that guarantee transparency other people will say well AI will fix all this but ultimately these solutions need to be human centric and they take time I think the problem in particularly in America is people are so impatient and they so are sort of infatuated with simple vulgar fixes which never of course were we know the way in which Trump plays on this and if any good student of history realizes and I stress this in the book it takes a generation or two to fix these issues the Industrial Revolution in the middle of the 19th century many of the worst consequences weren't fixed for generations when it came to it labor issues the rights of unions unemployment Social Security and even today with global warming the environmental consequences of industrial revolution have never really been properly addressed the same is true of the digital revolution so we need to be more patient I think again the Waldorf kind of education perhaps will create more patience and certainly in our Google and Facebook culture where we're guaranteed immediate answers within a millisecond and we can post a nun post and tweet and all the rest of it we are I think way too impatient and simplistic in our analysis of the world I think it's important also just a we need to be a little careful about sort of bashing I'm always a bit worried bashing Americans and well the Americans don't get it in the Europeans do to be fair to the Americans they are the ones with these incredibly innovative companies the problem with Europe is they're very good at regulation they're much less good at innovation on that note before we conclude Steve do you have a comment or question about what Andrews been talking writing about around the country in the world yes well I'm curious about we all know Ralph you are not in the credit economy you're not really in the digital economy you have people who do that kind of thing mr. keen I was wondering about your own personal relationship to the digital economy how do you deal with that how do you protect yourself what protocols do you put in place for your ah that's a good question I'm not like Ralph actually I know Ralph is not really Underwood typewriter that's the two words all you need to know I mostly don't protect myself but again it comes back to man one of the big themes in my book is I'm very wary of free product so for example I don't use Gmail I'm an Apple user and Apple isn't a perfect company either now these companies are perfect but I prefer Apple to Google because at least I know with Apple that I'm paying for the products they're probably charging ridiculous margins but they're not taking my data so I don't use Gmail I try to avoid the whole kind of Google Android Gmail ecosystem I'm not paranoid about my own privacy I mean the reality is is I don't really do anything I certainly don't do anything illegal and do anything particularly embarrassing either online so I'm not particularly worried if people are watching me I also think that we need to sort of D personalize this is of the nine I've written some critical things that oh yeah as you know as you've mentioned I and my books have been quite critical of the internet and people say oh you use email or you use Amazon or you use Google and I do and I think we've got to get beyond this kind of bifurcated atmosphere where either you embrace technology or you give it up completely and live in a cave also the fact that a lot of people feel trapped in this technology doesn't mean that they don't want to get out of the trap isn't that right yeah I mean you need to pick and choose I mean if there is an overall theme in the book is it perhaps a good way of ending this conversation it's with the theme of human agency so you talk Ralph about the five tools which are important in the book but there's a kind of uber tool which connects all the dots in the book and it's about human agency and that's why I go back to more as utopia in fact I even create a kind of concept around agency that I call Moore's Law not Gordon Moore of Intel but Thomas Moore the great challenge of today is arming us with agency giving us the power to determine our own lives in the face of these massive companies and of these seemingly inevitable technologies that's the great question of the 21st century how to be human and being human means making one's own history in a Marx made that point 150 years ago in the Industrial Age and it's even more true today because we've invented technology that might indeed even one day think for itself that might have consciousness so what we need about is a place for us where we shape our worlds whether it's in the choice of technologies we use or the kind of Education we have or how we distribute or don't distribute our data to me the great question of the age is human agents in fact you just took the words out of my mouth different words which is we need more education for tens of millions of students in the humanities and social studies history philosophy are the kind of ethical inheritance that we come from the wisdom of the Ancients people think today you know they're all irrelevant but a lot of people hiring in Silicon Valley are saying give me an English major give me give me some of you who can think we can write who can critique we don't want just cogs in the wheel so on that note the human agency thank you very much we've been talking with Andrew keen author of how to fix the future a book that you can mull over read it in its entirety or read chapter by chapter and start discussing it start changing some of the millions of book clubs who focus entirely on fiction to pick up a book like this because if we don't address the nonfiction Andrew Keene is talking and writing about we may very well find ourselves in a world of fictional madness thank you very much Andrew thank you I appreciate it we've been speaking to Andrew keen author of how to fix the future we will link to that and more of mr. Keynes work at Ralph Nader radio our calm when we come back we were going to celebrate the 30th anniversary of a prop that has saved consumers in California over a hundred and fifty four billion dollars you're listening to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour back after this from the national press building in Washington DC this is your corporate crime reporter morning minute for Friday December 14 2018 I'm Russell Maki Berg Nicholas Kotchman worked as an engineer at General Motors for 35 years during that time he witnessed what he calls a culture of resistance and failure resistance to life-saving auto safety and pollution control regulations that caused the automaker to fail in the marketplace Kotchman is the author of GM painted red inside General Motors culture of failure when I look at the failure of GM I look at all those great engineers they had Kotchman told corporate crime reporter last week you'd go to school to learn all the disciplines and it is all with the goal of solving problems making things better improving humanity GM was paying billions of dollars over the years for those PhDs and math degrees and regular engineers and GM was telling them develop reasons not to do something that was one of the greatest reasons why GM went bankrupt it was a terrible loss of talent and a waste of money for the corporate crime reporter I'm Russell Mulcahy Thank You Russell back in 1988 Ralph was part of a grassroots drive and it was literally a drive up and down Interstate 5 in California a small group of citizens faced off against what seemed to be an all-powerful insurance industry and they won and guess what it didn't kill the insurance industry either in fact they think they're making more money Robert hunter is the director of insurance at the Consumer Federation of America over the years mr. hunter has held many positions in the field both public and private including being the Insurance Commissioner for the state of Texas being the president and founder of the National Insurance consumer organization and as an underwriter for Atlantic mutual and centennial insurance companies welcome back to the Ralph Nader radio hour Robert hunter thank you nice to be here yes indeed you were also the Federal Insurance Commissioner under President Jerry Ford and President Jimmy Carter so correct you're also a property casualty actuary brand the greatest advocate for summers who have to buy insurance and spend maybe twelve to fourteen percent of their consumer budget on insurance in the history of the United States so this is celebration time something happened thirty years ago robber hunter in California it was called proposition 103 to be voted on by the voters of California and you looking back on it said quote we have been studying America's auto insurance markets for years in California has set the standard for savings fairness and real competition and quote well what happened well the people voted for the proposition it became law we were able to write very tough regulations the proposition 103 did two terrific things it put in a very rigorous regulatory regime where everything was transparent and people could know what was going on and consumers could intervene and in rate cases and other matters and even be funded to that so it had a regulatory component but it also had a very strong pro-consumer component people have to buy auto insurance but in every state except California insurance companies don't have to sell it in California prop 103 says if a driver is a good driver with a good driving record you must sell to that driver not only that you must sell at the lowest price of all your company so if you're a conglomerate like progressive with twenty companies in California someone applies you have to offer the lowest price of those 20 companies to that driver whereas in the rest of the country of course they can be placed anywhere and before proposition 103 which included installing an elected not appointed insurance commissioner in Sacramento before proposition 103 California was one of the highest auto insurance price states in the country fourth highest and what is it now now it's below the average of the country we're in the middle of finishing a report we've released some of the early results we've shown that compared to what the trajectory of where the country went with their rates California drivers have saved one hundred and to four billion dollars over the 30 years by the impact of prop 103 in the state and not only that the drivers are getting fairer rates they have more information it's been a wonderful result but that isn't what the insurance companies were saying while I and Harvey Rosenfield and you and others were campaigning up and down the state of California to get voters to enact proposition 103 I know our motto was proposition 103 is for me and the insurance companies were threatening to leave California not sell insurance quit the state they poured 70 million dollars in massive television and radio advertising campaigns predicting chaos predicting higher insurance rates all false right and just because a certain majority of California voters decided to find out what this Prop 103 was all about who was supporting it who was opposing it they went to the polls they didn't stay home they voted and this tiny exertion of political energy by millions of California consumers resulted in the last 30 years 154 billion with a B of savings think of this Ralph there's one other statistic that we just uncovered for the minimum required liability insurance in the state which is what everybody has to buy so poor people were particularly hard-hit by auto insurance California's liability insurance premium is more than 5% below what it was in 1989 today in other words you're just going down five I'm not talking about inflation adjusted I'm talking about if you paid $100 in 1989 you pay about 94 now remarkable why didn't this record in California spread to other states I mean there may be 20 other states had the referendum or initiative form of government 26 states we could do an initiative it didn't spread right away because first of all the insurance industry filed a bunch of lawsuits to try to kill prop 1 three after it passed and they challenged its constitutionality and then it had to go all the way the Supreme Court of the state and they had a whole bunch of other lawsuits and it ran around the country telling every state you don't look at that massive lawsuits uptick of course they filed them and they held off the other states from doing it but we are beginning to see a change I think in American voting in this last election there were some populist issues that pass on initiatives as you know around the globe around like our we get into what kind of insurance investigations the House of Representatives under the Democrats should be engaging in come January why don't you tell our listeners something about a Christmas gift or a holiday gift they may be getting in terms of rebate on their electric telephone gas bills and their insurance bills well I calculated that roughly auto insurance rates for example should drop two to five percent because of the tax cut auto insurance rates include a provision for what insurance companies have to pay in federal taxes and that increases the rate that they charge based upon the tax rate before now they've cited a sudden windfall of profits what Warren Buffett's breaking about how many billions of dollars he's gotten out of the tax breaks we filed with every state in the Union a letter saying that you got to immediately start calculating the savings for the people California did it almost immediately in part because of price restore our listeners this is the Trump driven tax cut that went through Congress last year right and it was heavily geared to cutting taxes on major corporations and the wealthy and so these major corporations included your electric telephone gas company your insurance companies correct and they have to pass on the savings under state regulations is that correct in my view they have to because the rates on file were calculated using the old tax rate and so certainly they should go in and adjust for that and as I said it can be a few percent at least for Ottawa has this had more for other state insurance has this happened yet in any state California did it that's the only one that I know about others a couple of others have said they're looking at it but nobody is actually forced nice to make rate filings except California I believe in some of the other businesses I don't study them like I do insurance there have been some already quite a few cuts have happened around the country but in insurance the only place where it's certainly happened is California well in Connecticut and we have listeners on wpk n and Bridgeport here's a situation there's been an agreement between the state regulatory agency and the electric gas and telephone companies I'm told by the community advocate Charlene Lavoie that starting next year they're going to start passing on the money of course there's always a dispute how much money they have to pass on based on the tax cut but the insurance commissioner hasn't yet gotten the insurance companies to make a move and this has been about a year hasn't it it's been months so it's probably at least it's almost a year yeah and I think the only way a commissioner can make it happen is do what California order that they make rate filings to adjust the current rates for that adjustment and of course obviously new rate filings have to include the lower tax rate too well all the radio stations listening listeners today just go to your insurance commissioner go to your utility regulator and say okay what's going on here California has done it the Consumer Federation of America is Mark Cooper can provide you with information listeners on state by state he's a public interest economist of long-standing let's go to the federal level you opposed the mccarran-ferguson Act that was enacted in nineteen forties which in effect barred the federal government from regulating insurance leaving it to the States what kind of hearings you think should be held on a variety of subjects including the mccarran-ferguson act by the New Democratic Party controlled House of Representatives they've got all kinds of committees subcommittees eager staff budgets what kind of Investigations category by category well I think our long overdue well you mentioned one the antitrust exemption of the mccarran-ferguson Act insurance companies are exempt from federal antitrust law that's huge and they still get together and have their rating bureaus and they have you know at least significant parts of the rate established by rating bureaus jointly and all that kind of stuff needs to be exposed we have maxine waters now will be the chair of the Financial Services Committee that's important because she could hold hearings on prop 103 she knows prop 103 she was involved at the time it passed and she knows how wonderful its business she's been very outspoken why doesn't the whole country have a prop 103 type of system at least why should we call the states in and the insurers and ask them why not move in that direction why sit back and watch what California has this great success and do nothing near about flood insurance given global warming rising seas have flood insurance you know I used to run the Flood Insurance Program and I've even gotten to the point where I wrote in The New York Times maybe we have to consider getting rid of the flood insurance program because the flood insurance program in its original design would have required safe construction once that maps were in place and in effect but a lot of communities aren't enforcing the maps the maps are old and our boy out of date theme has dropped the ball significantly over the decades when Hurricane Katrina hit in Mississippi that did in Jackson County Mississippi there was 76 flood insurance maps in place and people made decisions based upon those where to build and whether they need to buy the insurance or not shortly after the hurricane hitting the new maps came out the average map was about 20 years old the new maps were about nine feet higher elevations so people were building what they thought was safe houses but they were actually nine feet too low and people who felt like they were outside the floodplain right look I'm five feet above the floodplain we're really four feet below the floodplain so would you replace the flood insurance program wisdom but you'd have to have a long-term process where you either have it go toward the private sector or put it into in my view the ultimately what the goal should be used to have homeowners insurance policies cover everything you know not have these exceptions for flood and all the other exceptions that are in homeowners policies have all risk homeowners places so when somebody buys a home they get covered no matter how the house gets hurt people think they have that one thing buy homeowners insurance they should have that and you have to have the government would still have to enforce the land use and so on but the private sector would not do what Congress has done which another thing is spoil the program is Congress has come in and said you grandfather everybody into their current rate so this if a new map comes in and the rates should go up they don't have to raise the rate so that means people are paying way too little the program's going to lose more and more money you got to get the program financially fixed so that people are warned it doesn't do a consumer a lot of good to say look I get real cheap flood insurance and then have your house destroyed maybe somebody killed by a flash flood because you got a low rates because the map was wrong you got low rates because Congress said you can have low rates we're not going to make people pay the real rate so in listeners if you want more information go to the Consumer Federation of America what's the website on that before we conclude consumer fed or consumer fed org well thank you very much Robert hunter again your work is spectacular you show the power of sheer knowledge and a sense of justice as you campaigned all over the country you beat me once she campaigned in 50 states in the 1980s to save the civil justice system and I only got to 48 hello I asked you that's very much under me you have a productive New Year effect use YouTube I we have been speaking with Robert hunter who directs the Insurance Program at the Consumer Federation of America we will link to the article lays out the benefits that prop 103 is bestowed on the consumers of California at Ralph Nader radio our calm for those listening on the radio we're gonna check out here for you podcast listeners stay tuned for some bonus material we call the wrap up join us next week on the Ralph Nader radio hour when we talk about yet another aspect of the healthcare system with clinical professor at Columbia University redhide Thank You Ralph thank you Steve Thank You Jimmy remember listeners readers think thinkers read and then they organize for a functioning democratic society hi this is Jimmy Lee Wert producer of the Ralph Nader Radio Hour and welcome to the wrap-up where we spend a little more time with Robert hunter and then Ralph answers a couple of your questions have you got a 30 second take on what the House of Representatives to do on health insurance oh well in my view they should be moving in toward a single-payer it's the only solution ultimately well that was HR 676 until the end of this month and I understand that some Democrats are going to dilute 676 which is the gold standard according to the physicians for single payer organization right and they want to dilute it in order to bring it to the level of Bernie Sanders bill which is not considered the gold standard I think you have to go to the single-payer it's the only answer you'll never get the efficiencies you need to keep the cost down that's right so let's take a question or two here Ralph this first one comes from Tracy Johnson and says dear mr. Ralph Nader I was wondering if your latest book how the rats reform Congress will be available for download on audible zap I'm a devout listening to books thank you Merry Christmas Happy Holidays well thank you Tracy Johnson we're thinking of having it done next year we have to persuade one of these companies to do it so we'll see how appealing this book how the rats reformed the Congress is a very serious book designed to make you laugh yourself seriously in order to organize and every congressional district and you know Steve it's amazing the orders that are coming in are breaking more and more in terms of people ordering five of the paperback $50 in fact on one day we got 75 percent of our orders didn't just order one at rats Reform Congress or RG they ordered five so I hope they're thinking of living room discussions which is the incubator of grassroot democracy so just go to rats reform Congress or RG and we hope we'll get it on audible next year that's great news and if it goes on audible will you read it no they have somebody do it'll have they'll have neither substitute have a really good voice yeah well come on rau this is what you've been practicing for the last five years on this show your voice all right our next question comes from tarik Salah and he says dear Ralph Nader many philosophers for certain reason distanced themselves from the aimless masses in many of his books Chris Hedges talked about a dying decayed society who voted for yari balsa Nara but more than half of the population in Brazil who exactly are we trying to save who are trying to help here is it true what the Canadian American sociologist Erving Goffman once said quote society isn't insane asylum run by the inmates to broader brush the reek to broader brush every day tens of millions of people are keeping our society going doing their work on time in good shape just think of what you interact with every day what you see and what you can imply is being done competently the problem is too much concentrated power in too few hands corporate hands in our generation giant corporations astride the globe have no human attributes that are necessary for a sane society to operate and when we give them too much power and we allow them to decide for us extremely important directions in the future and how it impacts on people's livelihood we are going to get what I call institutional insanity that is corporations and corporate executives behaving in ways which if families behaved that way families with their children will be considered clinically insane like a hundred years of pollution by General Motors and to millions and millions of people's lungs like the waste of trillions of dollars in Pentagon contracting like the attention deficit disorder of hospitals pushing MA there's through giving birth and getting them out as fast as possible to make more money or like the kleptocratic drug industry that is skyrocketing it's often tax subsidized drug products and telling millions of Americans you pay or die those are institutional insanities and that's what we have to focus on thank you for your question tarik thank you all for your questions keep them coming on the Ralph Nader radio our website and that's a wrap join us next week on the Ralph Nader radio hour where we talk healthcare with clinical professor at Columbia University Fred Hyde [Music]

Channel: Ralph Nader Radio Hour

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Length: 62min 49sec (3769 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 15 2018