Odd Lots - Slavoj Žižek on GameStop, WallStreetBets, and the Future of Capitalism

Episode Date: April 12, 2021

When GameStop shares skyrocketed earlier this year, numerous pundits were quick to ascribe political significance to the whole thing. Was it a rebellion? Was it class warfare in the spirit of Occupy Wall Street? On this episode of Odd Lots, we speak with the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek, who argues that the episode was significant and radical, but not in the way most people appreciate. We also talked about algorithmic trading, WallStreetBets, the pandemic, and what's next for the future of capitalism.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Thanks for listening to Odd Lots. Follow the show on Amazon Music for more future episodes or just ask, Alexa, play the Odd Lots podcast on Amazon Music. Today's show is brought to you by Vanguard. To all the financial advisors listening, let's talk bonds for a minute. Capturing value and fixed income is not easy. Bond markets are massive, murky, and let's be real. Lots of firms throw a couple flashy funds your way and call it a day. But not Vanguard. At Vanguard, institutional quality isn't a tagline. It's a big line. It's a very big. It's a firm. It's a few. commitment to your clients. We're talking top-grade products across the board of over 80 bond funds, actively managed by a 200-person global squad of sector specialists, analysts, and traders. These folks live and breathe fixed income. So if you're looking to give your clients consistent results year in and year out, go see the record for yourself at vanguard.com slash audio.

That's vanguard.com slash audio. All investing is subject to risk vanguard marketing corporation distributor. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast. I'm Joe Wisenthal. Unfortunately, my normal co-host, Tracy Alloway, isn't here today. So it'll just be me. But if she were here today, I would call back to mind several weeks ago when we were talking about GameStop. And I complained in some of those episodes about the GameStop story. And I complained that throughout the GameStop story that numerous people were offering up their uninformed takes on the subject. Everybody seemed to have something they wanted to say about it, something about class warfare or something about the structure of the market, and by and large, most of those were not

particularly interesting or informed, and Tracy got mad at me for take policing, so to speak. But there was one thing I read that definitely caught my attention and sort of surprised me when I saw it. And that was a piece in the UK magazine, The Spectator, titled Corruption for Everybody. And the author of that piece is the well-known philosopher Slovojejec. He's at the University of London and the University of Ljubljana. Slovenian professor, author of numerous books, filmmaker, created the documentary, widely viewed titled The Pervert's Guide to ideology and a sort of well-known leftist, Marxist, psychoanalyst philosopher talking about GameStop really intrigued me. And so I thought, why don't we get him on the show and talk about stocks and the

market and the economy and the world today and anything else that's on his mind? And so he's here today. And I'm so very excited to bring in Slovojejejek. Thank you so much for joining us. What made you write about this story? You don't normally like write something about about a stock or the stock market. What was it about this that suddenly like captured everyone's attention? And you wrote this essay, the corruption for everybody. It was the memory of, as I said in the text of Croat elections a year ago. This really happened.

It's not my imagination. Although I love imaginary examples. I invent that. A guy there, an actor I learned. He was a well-known actor in Croat National Theater. made a presidential campaign where said the problem now is that corruption is limited to those who are inside. But I promise corruption for everybody. I love that.

Everybody will be able to be corrupted and so on. We'll get his, her, their piece of the pipe in the corruption. And I thought, isn't something similar at work in Wall Street, Beds, against stock stuff, and so on and so. Now, I don't want to be accused of bluffing too much. So let me just make a very brief two points of self-presentation. First, I don't think I know I try to read stuff and so on, but that I know too much about all the technical details about economy, you know? So what I'm saying is that what fascinated me in Graysop story is a certain logic that I saw in it,

which is on the one hand, I know there is a very interesting vision in it, vision of a truly popular or populist capitalism. Everyone of us can do it. On the other hand, what interests me more, and that's the, in my domain, ideology, even more interesting. So it's not the version of everybody can do it if you have a permanent job in the morning, you work or you work from home, whatever, and yeah, it was in the evening, anybody can do it, and so on and so on. What interested me is, again, two crucial features. The first one is that it's the counterpoint of experts.

And that's why they succeeded. What do you mean by this? You know, there was a certain tendency among others. I don't trust him. Elon Musk proposed this. And didn't two guys, a lady and a man, already you must know this better than me, already a year, a year and a half ago,

didn't they propose an algorithm a program which enables you to play the stock market and it costs a certain permit on Wall Street because the rumor was that the algorithm which the market proposes investments does on average, on average there are always exceptions and mistakes slightly better job than your stock market representatives. So who needs Wall Street? algorithm can do it better. What interested me here is that Wall Streetbacks and then GameStop is not this, but it's in some way a counterpoint. Because what I find so immensely attractive, I was tempted to play it with GameStop.

Let's say you are a perfect scientist, at least if I doubted, stock market games, science. You know all the tendencies, futures, you know the influence of weather and so on, like the court, okay, you can play this game professionally. But isn't the big revolution of gangstock that they consciously didn't want a certain trend and to know too much? Their strongest card was, we don't know it, we want to introduce chaos. Let's pick up on gangstop or whatever and nobody will know why did we pick up this one. This will then introduce fantasies, chaos and so on. Stocks will go up, down and so on.

And the idea is we basically, I simplify it a little bit, I know, but the basic idea is we don't care what really goes on. Does GameStop has a certain new product or whatever? We just want to choke the market, what brings us success. is not the reality of production, but the enigmatic character of our act. People will imitate this, then it will go down and you know, good short-term speculators, when things go up and down quickly, if you are intelligent here, you can earn quite a lot.

So this is what interests me, and especially again, this reaction to the idea of expert. knowledge. And that's what I find the Hegelian. Things always fascinate me when a certain tendency, as it were, falls apart into its opposites. For example, we thought capitalism goes with democracy. Yes, but we have today China, and not only China, where I will be very brief. What shocked me so much today in China? Let's not exaggerate the success of China. Because when Chinese are now proud, you see, we did it, COVID, we dominated it. Yeah, but I always like to annoy my Chinese friends by telling them,

wait a minute, there is a country which you want to swallow, but they don't want to be swallowed by you, which did even better. It's Taiwan. Taiwan is the true miracle in COVID. China combines what seems incredible for us, the wildest capitalism, speculations, blah, blah, and strong authoritarian power. It is as if we go and something similar happened to me here. So I'm here very realistic. I'm not playing an old Marxist or bourgeois decadence. There is something strangely very liberating in this. I think that on the one hand, you have what I call ironically a communist tendency on the Wall Street in stock exchange.

Because, you know, if you really can trust algorithms, then why do we need stock exchanges at all? On the other hand, one of my favorite anecdotes from Stalinism. I read his insiders memoirs and people noticed that you know Stalin got many evenings

1,000 names of everybody who will be condemned to death liquidated and of course Stalin didn't have time to study all the cases but like every 50th name something like that got a pardon

and they asked him but why do you decide for that guy You know what Stalin said? He said, I don't know. It just adds the enigma. People will think that I was thinking that I have some mysterious reasons and so on and so on. That's so fascinating for me. The very gesture of arbitrarily deciding something raises the mystery and so on makes the game around.

So just to define myself to shock your public, I think COVID and pandemics, other pandemics, other pandemics and global warming and so on, will demand from us, I use this term to provoke people, some kind of communism. Don't be afraid. By this, I mean God forsake us, no China. What I mean is simply some kind of social control, but not state control in economy. Limit the market, not abolish the market. I know the efficiency of the market. But look at what Biden now. 1,900 million. Sorry, no way can you justify this

with capitalist logic. But at the same time, now comes the beauty. When people ask me, what type of a communist you are? I'll say, no joke, a moderately conservative communist. That's what I can see.

First, moderately, we never master the game. We do something, the effect could be the opposite one. and so on and so on. It's always a trial and error. That's why I am fascinated.

You know who is at this point my favorite politician in the world maybe? Lucio Arce, the new, after Morales and Linera, now the new three-elected president of Bolivia. He was the true master of moderate but nonetheless economic miracle during the Morales years. And he was a radical leftist, but very cautious, moderate, conservative. And surprise, surprise, it was not the Chavez and Castro story. It's not the usual story.

Radical leftists take it over, and then in one year they screw it up. For 10 years and they did it. Leftists who are aware that we are slowly pushed towards more radical changes, but who are at the same time aware that this would be extremely cautious, What interests me the morning after, how does life change for ordinary people when the enthusiasm, the trans is over? And really a moderately conservative communist here. Something I want to go back to this idea of the disconnect. And just going back to stocks for a second, even though the conversation is much deeper than that,

This disconnect between the thing, the company GameStop, and then the stock itself completely divorced from any sort of like underlying reality of production. And I think we're in an age in which, at least in the U.S., there is an extraordinary amount of speculation. Speculation is in the air. People are buying everything, stocks and collectibles and commodities. And I'm curious cryptocurrencies. And I'm sort of like curious your take on what it says when we get this sort of like fervor for the public for speculation in general, taking over consuming so many people's minds. First, I would say that, yes, strange things are going on in the sense that you remember. This was a shock for many economies. They tried to provide explanations.

I read them. I don't think they were good explanations. You remember in United Kingdom. England and the US, the same day when it was announced that we are in the greatest crisis after the big one late 20s, early 30s, how many new unemployed production fell for 30% and so on. Stock market went up. How is it the crisis in production and so on did not reflect itself in stock market? Now, I think that again, there were many explanation. One was that most of this upward movement was just reflecting the

mega big companies. I think that something is happening here and it's not necessarily bad. This shows that not only capitalism, the way we knew it were in some immediate way nonetheless stock market variations reflect what happens in so-called real economy, that you can feed a little bit, but at the end point, reality strikes, bites back. I don't know how should do it, you know. It's interesting that this obsession with final settlement of accounts. We can speculate, but it's short-term, but at the end, reality strikes back. We will have to pay.

Do you know that this is what two big opponents, liberals and orthodox Marxists, share? Marx's idea is at the end, crisis will strike back. Liberals, I mean, not political liberals, but market liberals, also claim you can cheat only up to some extent. At the end, you have to pay the price. To this, my answer is still the wonderful saying, you must know, everybody knows it, by John Minard Keynes. We said, don't mention in the long term too much. In the long term, we are all dead. The magic of capitalism is precisely this eternal postponement.

Yes, capitalism is built on fictions, but these fictions can reproduce themselves and there is no natural limit. Well, okay, many people say ecology, when nature is disintegrating too much, is it a certain limit? But not necessarily for capitalism. Capitalism has this incredible plasticity of reinventing itself just changing investment into.

But what I'm saying is that this is for me a strength of capitalism. A progressive society should also, my vision of what to provoke my friends I call capitalism, should also retain this element of incredible plasticity. I'm fascinated by all these madnessists of the market. You know what is my big opponent today? It's this conservative reaction like that. Things are getting too wild. We need to return to some, how should I call it,

fixed more natural, stable way of life, either traditional patriarchal or at least more stable, society or smaller organic communities and so on and so on. No, I don't think so. I think that capitalism, let's be frank, retained its great revolutionary strength. What is going on today? Now I'm in the mood of, ironically, of course, praising capitalism. Me Too, LGBT Plus, and so on.

I spoke with some global historian. people who still exist, but not empty speculators, who look at the entire history of humanity. They told me, no, no, not in a bombastic Marxist way, very realistically. And they told me Marx made one mistake when he simply talked about primitive, pre-class societies. No, the first big break is there, as many people know, neolithic. That is to say, pass it from no Marx too.

settlements with agriculture, buildings and so on and so on. This is before classes emerged. At that point, with Neolithic, before class society, this almost eternal for us patriarchal order with traditional roles of men, women emerged. But capitalism is ruining this today, with Me Too, LGBT Plus and so on. is changed not only the future which was in all class societies, but even earlier from Neolithic. That's how radical it is what's going on today in capitalism. We still should build on this destructive, creative power of capitalism.

There is no progress without going through capitalism. Also capitalism in its craziest. the crisis, speculations, plasticity of human relations, and so on and so on. The temptation is so strong today, especially with global warning, economic crisis and so on, to say, no, we went too far. We have to return to some more modest, organic way of life. No, we should go to the end. Today's show is brought to you by Vanguard.

To all the financial advisors listening, let's talk bonds for a minute. Capturing value and fixed income is not easy. Bond markets are massive. murky, and let's be real. Lots of firms throw a couple flashy funds your way and call it a day. But not Vanguard. At Vanguard, institutional quality isn't a tagline. It's a commitment to your clients. We're talking top-grade products across the board of over 80 bond funds, actively managed by a 200-person global squad of sector specialists, analysts, and traders. These folks live and breathe fixed income. So if you're looking to give your clients consistent results year in and year out, go see the record for yourself at vanguard.com slash audio.

That's vanguard.com slash audio. All investing is subject to risk vanguard marketing corporation distributor. You know, it's interesting. You mentioned the Biden stimulus and $1.9 trillion. I'm curious if you think there's what sort of divergence you're seeing between what's going on in the U.S. versus what's going on in Europe where we don't see that level of ambition, where despite the sort of praise for off of the public health system, the vaccine rollout does not seem to be going as well as it is in the United States.

Is this a turning point between sort of the trajectories for the American politics and economics versus Europe? I must admit that I am unabashedly Eurocentric in the sense that nonetheless, European community with all its limitations. I told to some of my leftist friends who shouted to shout at me, I was almost beaten by then. When I told them, whatever you can say critical about Western Europe.

But can you imagine, now I will be pathetic, bombastic, any period in the history of humanity where so many people lived such a relatively rich welfare, safe and free life as they did till recent crisis in Europe. But the tragedy is that now, and not because of some external reasons, Europe is slowly falling apart. First, there is not enough unity, parts of Europe,

especially parts to which I belong, which made me say that here in my own country in some circles, I repeatedly used for this new populist right-wing axis of Europe. It is Poland, Hungary, Slovenia. I use the term, I love it, that this is the true axis of it. This is ruining Europe from within. But it's not just blaming us. Europe itself is becoming more and more inoperative.

You remember three years ago, too, or when the crisis inundated? Europe was enabled as homogeneous politics to react to it. With refugee crisis a couple of years ago, it was the same. Now with vaccinations, it's the same. And I find this very sad because today something that would resemble Europe, a larger than nation-state community, with all its hypocrisy, shitting and so on. But nonetheless, the values are the values with which should be universal values today. Like when Europe said, no, everybody should get vaccine proportionally.

No state should be privileged and so on and so on and so on. But you know what I don't worry about? In Europe and especially in the United States, people say, oh my God, but this is crazy. the moment of reckoning will come, like 1,900 billions, who will pay this? No, money is virtual. You can manipulate it. I don't believe in this projection. Then a bill would come from whom?

I always take a very simplified example. I hope you will agree. World War II. My God, Roosevelt was doing this like crazy, unproductively spending money, and there was no settlement of account after the war. the greatest period of welfare came back. So I don't believe in this basic liberal in the market sense, conservative liberal, instinct that you cannot spend money just like that.

You can. You must do it in an intelligent way, of course, but you can't. Remember World War II, how much United States were spending. You can do it. I think we shouldn't be afraid of this. If you ask me, much more worried, it will sound idealist, but nonetheless, about the possible collective ideological and psychological impact of the COVID crisis, race of violence, disintegration of social community.

You know, in the United States, on the one hand, you can say, and let's be frank, I'm afraid it's true, that apart from all bad things that the pandemic did, you got a rid of Trump because of the pandemic. I doubt if he would lost the elections without the pandemic. But at the same time, don't underestimate, I hope Trump people will slowly lose ground, but nonetheless, don't underestimate the state of an ideological civil war. You are in. And this is now emerging all around.

And I don't agree with people who say some republics, who are critical of Trump, you remember. They say, nobody should be excluded. We should find a larger unity. No, sorry, you cannot. There are certain limits. For example, apropos Hitler in 1940, 41, you shouldn't say, oh, but maybe we are too exclusive,

everybody makes mistake. No, there are points in politics where the only way to unity is through an even more radical division. You set the limit. No, sorry guys, not with you. And a true leader does this. Then you build a new unity.

I just doubt if Biden will be able to do it. What about, you know, like one of the questions that arose in the last couple of years is whether there can be some sort of like actual, I guess I would say class-based politics of the U.S. or class-based realignment or some sort of, reinvigoration of the U.S. labor movement in some way or another. Is that plausible? In some sense, yes, it's necessary. And that's what Bernie Sanders, although his success was limited, did at some level.

He was very wise here, you know. I heard already two years ago a speech by him where he won a Democratic Party against this, just focusing on undecided middle classes. You know, we shouldn't go to Mars. No. Burley said our true target should be those poor white and not only white people who would have otherwise voted for Trump. Don't focus too much, although don't neglect them,

on a traditional Marxist and not only Marxist idea of a working class, you know. You know, it would be very interesting to analyze the model, the image which determined our business. perception of what real working class is. At some point, it was still workers or miners or whatever. Today, I claim it's crucial to think in broader terms. If the pandemic made something clear, it is that not only the role of precarious workers, not only the role of those who worked in the service, like health workers and so on and

so on. But also new forms of colonization, it's no longer the classical exploitation. For example, I have French in Ecuador who told me, don't talk only about working class. You have many native communities in Ecuador who are not employed by Western BIT companies. They are not formally exploited. Like, I'm a capitalist, a classical formula. I pay you a wage, but I keep the extra profit. No, they are in some sense ecological proletarians. The way

international companies, also their own equator, are ruining in the replenishing the country of its natural resources, they are ruining the environment. They are exploited in this sense. There are also complaining, you must remember,

in Canada, that with fracking, oil and so on. Native Americans communal life was ruined. So we have this, we have the whole problem of unpaid labor. All this should be brought together. Why? I hope you will agree of this. This is what I always find, I've written about it a lot. What I always found crucial, some Italian leftist theoreticians trying to conceptualize this. You know, Marx's classical scheme of development was from rent to profit. In early,

capitalism, you were weaving and the capitalists give you the wool and just took the rent. You were not formally employed by it. But isn't it now with this new, mostly digital big companies, Microsoft, Amazon, how did they get as rich as they are? First, the people employed by Bill Gates are probably, as far as I know, not so badly paid. You cannot say they are exploited or what. I think it's what I call in Marxist terms a new period of the privatization of commons. Now that we talk on the web,

we have to use as our commons, the common space within which communicate. We have to use Microsoft mostly. Now, if you want to buy a book, you have to rely on Amazon. if you want to have personal chat communication, Facebook and so on and so on. So this guy, I think, get the rent from controlling our commons. This is something new. You cannot cover it with the traditional form of exploitation. Things have to be re-top.

It's not simply some leftist dream. Let's return to old trade union class politics. I will give you probably a non. Not typical, but nonetheless important example from my own, as your beloved ex-president Trump would have said, fit whole of a country, Slovenia. You know that here, when there is a strike, I'm mostly skeptical. Why? Because if I may use this old Leninist term, those who can afford to strike in Slovenia today are mostly what Lenin called workers aristocracy. Privileged workers mostly in state administration and state apparatus institutions, doctors, policemen, judges, up to appoint teachers, universities.

They blackmail us, like doctors say we go on strike and if you don't raise our salaries, whatever. It's the same with policemen, with judges and so on. You see my point, to be able to go on strike today means an incredibly privileged position in privately owned factories and someone. Nobody dares to go to strike because they mostly tell you, okay, if I close the factory, I move to Turkey or to China, you know. So again, things have to be rethought here, radically. I don't believe in this return to the old nostalgic notion of working class.

Eating well shouldn't be complicated, but somehow it turns into recipes, prep, clean up, and half your Sunday gone. Factors solves all that. These are fresh, ready-to-eat meals designed by dietitians, delivered to your door and ready in just minutes. No prep, no clean-up, no excuses. And it's not just about convenience. You're getting real food, balanced nutrition, and zero artificial stuff. Meals that help you stay on track for all of your goals without the grind of doing it all yourself.

Grilled chicken, roasted veggies, steak plates, postables. They taste like something you get in a restaurant, but they come out of your microwave in two minutes flat. If time costs or effort have been holding you back from eating better, Factor just took those off the table. Right now, get 11 meals, free shipping, and free sides for life. Hurry, this offer won't last long. Go to FactorMeals.C.A. and use code fit.

That's 11 meals, free shipping, and free sides for life, but only with the code fit at factormeals.ca. Factor, Canada's number one ready-to-eat meal delivery service. Life changes fast and one thing shouldn't, your storage price. At XYZ Storage, lock in your rate for a full year with our industry-first locked-in pricing promotion. No surprises, no sudden increases, just secure, affordable storage you can count on. Whether you're storing a little or a lot, now's the time to make your move.

Visit XYZ Storage.ca. I want to go back to something you said very early on. And I thought it was interesting, so I didn't want to forget it. You talked about the implications of algorithms. And this idea is like, okay, if you can have an algorithm and many people work on them, you could beat the market. And I know that like, you know, people talk about this in old, sort of older sort of like communist society is like, well, why can't we just have? And you mentioned it, a computer or an algorithm establish a superior division. of resources, the sort of ultimate, the ultimate distribution. And I'm curious, like, where you see

that going and do you think that that does open the door for more state level or corporate level, superior distribution of resources? No, it doesn't work. I think it would mean, unfortunately, I don't like this term. It's too pathetic for me, alienation. But nonetheless, the situation would get out of control because, okay, you can say society. controls it rationally. But I always think in a realistic term, what does it mean society control is

some state organism which interests are behind it and so what? I don't believe in it. Also, let me conclude in a slightly more leftist way. You know who was a very interesting guy? An early leftist from the period

of French Revolution, an English man called, I think Earl or Lord of Loderdale. He was an English nobleman, but went to France, joined the Jacobins, you know. And he gave a wonderful example against this logic, which is behind algorithms controlling, the logic of universal commodification. You can go in this direction. To the end, like, I remember already 20, 30 years ago, some feminists claimed that women doing the home, work and so on.

It's simply their unpaid labor. So let's treat it as a source of value. Women should get a certain salary for doing this. The idea was even absolute commodification of nature itself. Like there was an absurd proposal to measure all the fresh waters in a state and then put a price on it, you know. But as Lauderdale demonstrates, in this sense, you get false wealth.

In most sense, he gives a wonderful example. At that time, but the example is today more actual than ever. Imagine a small town where they have nice streams, nice river, enough water. Nobody worries about water. Water is like air. It's there. Then he imagines a factory which does some technical, chemical, staff pollutes the river. So what happens is that some people introduce some machines to clean

the water and are selling water. Now, from the standpoint of value, if you measure wealth by value, although for a majority of people, things got poorer, they have to pay for water. But free water before didn't count as value because it didn't exist as a market entity. So now, formally, society is much richer because, you know, more capital terms around, more things around the market. And it's the same today. Maybe even with air, it will become the same. In China, they're already on the edge of it. You know, the saddest thing I learned now two, three days ago, they had again a terrible sandstorm, the air was yellow in Beijing. You know which is now the new thriving local for poor people, tourism there?

One day trips and the only thing they promise you, we take you out of Beijing to a place where you will be able to see the blue sky. So what I'm saying is that how much of our wealth is this type of fake wealth, wealth which doesn't make our lives richer. So I don't think the solution is commodify everything in a more just way. Women's labor should be commodified. They should be paid for nature and so on. No, I think that we should aim as much as possible towards freely available things.

Not freely in the sense they cost nothing. They cost a lot, but it can be done. If there is a lesson from the pandemic, is that I don't care if you also use private companies. doctors, but somehow healthcare should be universal, should be internationally cooperated, and automatically available to all. Or vaccine. I support here, those who claim, okay, let the state, the big companies like Pfizer and so on make billions. But basically, the formulas itself, the formula should be national. I don't think this will ruin capitalism.

This will not introduce some kind of communist terror. But you know, we should, the lesson today from this crisis, global warming and so on and pandemic, is that there are, that it's not, as people wrongly say, forget about your private interests, don't be an egotist, think about the common good. good. But today, isn't it more and more clear that as a good egotist, you should think about common good. If you care about you, about your own family. That's why I was told there,

unfortunately, a minority, that, for example, when before the governor of California, she convinced many rich people that if you put more into police protection, protection, environment, and schooling, even if you are rich, your life will be better. You will be able to stroll around freely, your children playing with others. You will not be obliged to live in quarantine, exclusive societies and so on and so on. So for me, I never liked a moralist approach. No, we should refer to the utmost dirty egotist moments, aspects of people. It's in our egotist interest to approach these problems collecting.

So final question, and then we'll go. I just want to drill down on that one last thing. So it is a phenomenon. If you listen to any business leader these days, especially of a big company, they almost certainly want to talk about something bigger. They want to talk about the environment or education. Why are we in this age where this is the preferred mode of, conversation, the preferred mode of expressing themselves?

I think I will provide you an extremely simple answer that we are dealing here with what I've written often about this, with what in psychoanalysis is called fetish denial. We know this, but we don't really believe it. For example, ecology. Yeah, we all know it, global warming and so on. But didn't notice how people, media report on it. It's always either a little bit in future, if we don't do something now in 10, 20 years it will happen,

or it's at another place on northern South Pole and so on. It's not yet here. To an incredible level, we rationally know it, but we don't believe it. That's why pandemic, I will say something horrible, I like it. Because it just really chappened. You cannot say, oh, if we do nothing, pandemic. No, pandemic did cheat us.

You know, here I'm a pessimist, optimist, pessimist. Optimist because pandemic may awaken us a little bit. pessimist because, obviously, we will need much more things like pandemic to really awaken us. And I think I wouldn't worry that this will not come. If you ask me, look, nobody knows what is happening. Just to conclude, did you notice this strange temporality of the pandemic? In the spring, even your big Fauci, the favorite temporal limit was two weeks.

You remember in March a year ago? It will be back for two weeks, then it will be getting better. A little bit later in summer, the pre-perate. The third period was two months. For two months, it will be tough, then better. Then in the fall, it was half a year. Now, Fauci said in 2022 masks will still be used and so on and so on. What is so horrible is this disorientation.

But maybe this will awaken us a little bit. I hope that we are in a crisis. You know, people often talk about, you know who said this? wonderful formula. George Orwell, in some of his pre-World War II, he said, many leftists talk all the time about the need for social change, but it's a kind of superstitious activity to make it sure that nothing will really change. We are still at that level, mostly. Well, on that note, Slovoggi Jacques, thank you so much for joining us. I'm grateful to you. Thanks very much. Thank you.

Well, I wish Tracy were here so that I could bounce some ideas back and forth from her. But honestly, here's solo. I don't have, you know, no obvious summary points. Other than that, I will be thinking about that discussion for a while. Though I did think, you know, going back to that first question, how it's interesting is I remember, you know, during the GameStop stuff, all these people talking about how is kind of class warfare or something radical. And he really seemed to take that even further than most of them, really talk about how radical it was, the arbitrariness of it, the radicalness of arbitrary market moves, the radicalism of capitalism. Very provocative discussion. Really enjoyed it.

But beyond that, not much else obvious to say. So with all that, this has been another episode of the Odd Lodz podcast. I'm Joe Wisenthal. You can follow me on Twitter at the stalwart. my normal co-host Tracy Alloway. You should follow her at Tracy Allaway. Follow our producer, Laura Carlson at Laura M. Carlson. Follow the Bloomberg head of podcast, Francesca Levy, at Francesca Today. And check out all of our podcasts at Bloomberg under the handle at podcasts.

Thanks for listening. Join Bloomberg in New York or via live stream on May 19th for building an AI future-ready business. This event will examine how organizations are moving beyond experimentation to scale agentic AI across the enterprise. By joining us, you'll hear from successful executives who are at the forefront of designing human plus agent operating models that are secure and outcome-driven. This event is proudly sponsored by Kindrel.

Register at Bloomberg Live.com slash FutureReady. What separates good leaders from transformational ones? I'm Jessica Chen, and in season two of Leading By Example, we'll sit down with executives like Grace Chen of Bertie Grosie. gray to find out. It's important to understand where you spike, but also really acknowledge where you don't and find people who can fill those gaps. Listen to leading by example, executives making an impact on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.