Sohrab Ahmari
Appearances
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
Yeah, so with all this talk of plastic surgery, I'm reminded of Michelle Welbeck, the French novelist who said, you know, the prevalence of plastic surgery is a sign of sexual generosity. I don't know how that applies to many factories.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
I definitely have some Welbeck in the back. All right. But here's what I'd say is that, so the reason that the Hamiltonian tradition, again, not just Hamilton himself, but I would include Abraham Lincoln and his economic advisor, Henry Charles Carey and Teddy Roosevelt, and especially the FDR and the New Deal order, they all emphasize manufacturing. It goes back to Hamilton himself said for the
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
For the safety and independence of national life, you need manufacturing independence, something that we encountered in 2020 during the pandemic when we realized that from basic components for many drugs to personal protective equipment for our first responders and so on, couldn't produce that on our own because we'd offshored so much manufacturing.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
And I heard you railing against offshoring, John, in your conversation with Senator Sanders as well. I don't care for it. So I would say, look, there is something special about manufacturing because the period of lowest inequality in American history, the New Deal order, did coincide in an industry-led economy. Manufacturing was about nearly a third of the US GDP in 1950, down to about 10% today.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
Now, I don't know how much Adam agrees with this or not. I think that that wasn't the result of world historical deterministic inevitability, it was a result of concrete policy choices where in the beginning of the 1970s, we decided to favor finance over the real economy. And this kind of addiction to cheap labor began where not just through offshoring, but also
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
lots of immigration and so on, we disempowered the American working class. And of course, the anti-union thrust of American policy that really took off under Reagan. So there is something about manufacturing, for example, the NYU sociologist, Vivek Chhibber is a Marxist, but lots of other scholars as well have shown that manufacturing jobs are easier to unionize, certainly than service sectors.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
There's something about the proximity of workers in a regular stable hours during the day, and even the kind of geographic proximity that factory life creates compared to gigafied labor. Even the Biden administration was as friendly as you could get to organize labor, but the union density, the share of workers that are covered by collective bargaining was so low now.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
Like how do we, how do we square that? Yes. So a couple of, I want to address the Adam's point. I mean, I think it's right that The manufacturing share of the GDP can go up somewhat, but that doesn't necessarily translate into huge gains in terms of the manufacturing share of the workforce precisely because of automation. I think everyone in this space recognizes that.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
The first thing I'd say is, first of all, the jobs that are currently in manufacturing are worth protecting. Once a month, there's like a kind of gathering of manufacturers who've committed to manufacture only in the United States. And they will tell you that, you know, Chinese dumping threatens their current employees, which are significant numbers.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
You know, would that get us to 30 percent manufacturing if all these jobs were protected? No.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
I agree. I agree. But, you know, I mean, there are jobs to protect right now in this in the sector because of its other dimensions of its national security dimension. The fact that, again, to go back to this idea that the Hamiltonian model sought to bind capital to place to political community.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
Right. And because of the capital investments involved, the manufacturing, the local factory boss is a lot more, I mean, he might be a jerk and you have to fight him with unions. And I'm all for that. As Adam knows, I'm a pretty, for someone who is of the center, right, I'm all for, you know, trying to boost our union density and all that.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
But still he's connect, he or she is connected to the local community in a way that Wall Street or distant, you know, Silicon Valley tech firms are not. But okay, so if we try our best to increase the manufacturing share of the workforce, that will hit a limit.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
However, let's try at first, because the thing is, if we get to the point where we break corporate America's addiction to cheap labor, especially through offshoring, it will force them to pay higher wages here locally or to innovate. Right now, the current kind of globalization model that we're hopefully transitioning out of incentivizes them
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
not to actually do labor-saving technologies, but to try to do the same things with cheaper and cheaper labor.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
But just to finish this point, and I agree with that, you know, I welcome our robot overlords. Like, let's bring them over. And if we're going to have like a full luxury automated communism. Let them be our robots.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
You know, and then, you know, you have an economy that can pay more for its caretakers, for the kinds of workers that Adam mentioned, that the strength of the manufacturing sector can absorb higher wages in, you know, Burger King or in, home healthcare and all those other sectors. But they won't.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
So the way I'd put this is that they're pursuing Hamiltonian means by Jacksonian ends. Now, let me explain that. By the way, both are in my wallet right now. Yes, exactly right. I just want to make that clear. May there be ever more of them.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
But Arthur Schlesinger, the great New Deal historian, described the New Deal project as Hamiltonian means for Jeffersonian ends, meaning using big governments, using sort of directing markets and so on and so forth. for the Jeffersonian ideal of a kind of prosperous, relatively egalitarian order. Of course, the Jeffersonian vision didn't include African-Americans in its ambit. Right.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
But still, the idea was to use this kind of big state interventionist model to achieve the small-r Republican Jeffersonian model. So now I think if you want to use these kind of categories, the Trumpians are coming in. They have I think Hamiltonian ends in mind. They want a manufacturing-led economy, et cetera, et cetera.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
But they're using the methods of Andrew Jackson, of course, the co-founder of the Democratic Party, who believed in breaking things. He thought that the Second Bank of the United States was a vehicle for entrenched Northeastern elites, and in some ways it was. So Hulk smash. He broke it. But the results, it didn't redound to the benefit of those people.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
It actually, as Adam knows better than I do, that his war on the second bank immediately resulted in inflation and a depression as a result of like wildcat banking, lots of messy small banks, et cetera, et cetera. And the U.S. really didn't stabilize its financial system for nearly a century until the establishment of the Federal Reserve. So I see some of that
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
kind of contradiction in the Trumpians. I like some of their protectionist efforts and so on, but I find the, you know, frankly, the Elon Musk Doge stuff really disturbing and really contradictory to, you know, you need state capacity if they want to do stuff like that. You need workforce development. By the way, unions can be a part of workforce development. They're very good at it, as we know.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
Unfortunately, what they've done is they've crippled the National Labor Relations Board, which I find very disturbing. Lots of regulators that do good things, like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, that would have regulated Elon's own ex if he wants to turn it into a payment app.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
Gee, why would he have done that? In a completely self-interested way. So, I mean, that's the Jacksonian part. And the problem with the Jacksonians is... They harness populist anger with the economic order, but it redounds to the benefit of other elements of capital. And that's the problem with the Trumpians.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
I mean, as with all these things, I think it's a mix and we... We should be careful about the Trumpians as a whole because there are very serious internal divisions between them. There is definitely the Lex Luthor-like kind of techno overlords. Who, by the way, all do have the Lex Luthor.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
At least in some dimension, insofar as the that's called the tech right or the techno billionaires are asserting, you know, an ever greater role in the Trump administration. It's to the to the detriment of its populist elements, some of whom, You guys might disagree.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
I think there are very sincere people into kind of what this called the new right, et cetera, who, who, who don't share that view and they don't want that.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
But I just want to address the PMC thing a little bit because I sort of have the same reading that the Jeff Bezos types of the world used anger at the PMCs because the PMC are people who manage working class people in a way. The working class people don't come into contact with Bezos.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
Right. And so, I mean, it's very telling that for about a decade, the way that the Bezos types of the world legitimated their power was through kind of woke language, DEI stuff. My favorite example, John, you probably know it, is there was this podcast called put out by REI, the outdoor sports chain, right?
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
Where the podcast, it was a company podcast and some lady came on and said, hello, my name is so-and-so. I'm proud to serve as your diversity and inclusion chief. I use she, her pronouns. And I just want to acknowledge that I'm coming to you from the traditional lands of the Ohlone people. By the way, the topic of this podcast is why you shouldn't join a labor union, right? Right.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
I mean, the examples are legion and it just shows you that kind of the PMC left did do harm because it associated, it blended some legitimate economically redistributive policies that I would support with a bunch of nonsense that ordinary people like got really fed up with.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
And it's amazing now that like the same Bezos who marched at the forefront of kind of the Black Lives Matter column five years ago is now issuing diktats to his newspaper that he owns, the Washington Post editorial page saying, you know, don't be so woke. Yeah. Isn't it telling that it's the same guy?
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
Yeah, I disagree. I think that for the most part, it was about making the C-suite, making it more diverse, but not really changing the power dynamics between the C-suite and the assetless majority. That's my point. My point is- I get that, but I just put a more negative spin on it even.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
I would just put the emphasis on class, genuinely, as opposed to these other identitarian dimensions, because in a very real way, lots of those kind of DEI, woke cultures, practices, et cetera, cashed out as, you know, hey, you haven't gotten a meaningful raise in nearly two generations. You know, your healthcare is lousy, et cetera, but take solace. Your boss is a you know, disabled trans woman.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
I see it as much more, I think, cynical than Adam does. But I think if we just do a, focus it on class, because by the way, all these identitarian divisions are management strategies as well. You can divide the working class and they do it all the time. So I'm, you know, like, again, I'm of the center, right?
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
But when I listened to Senator Sanders, especially the Senator Sanders of circa 2015, 16, I'm like, oh my God, I really, This was good. And what a tragedy it was that, for example, he said – he called for all sorts of antitrust measures and Hillary Clinton said, yeah, but would breaking up the banks end systemic racism? No, it doesn't, but that's not the problem it's supposed to address.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
And it was telling that she –
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
No, I agree with that, and I worry about that. Listen, you said something, and I think Adam agreed, that fundamentally the New Deal order was a conservative project because it was an attempt to bring the turbulent market and all the disruption it can bring under some degree of political control, strike a different bargain between the asset-less majority and the asset-rich few.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
As Roosevelt himself said, if you would preserve reform, meaning if you don't want a revolutionary scenario, give in to reform. So I think my hope in the long term to try to think dialectically is if these guys want to return to the power relations that prevailed in the 1890s, let's say, then what you're going to have potentially is the kind of labor industrial relations that you had in the 1890.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
Adam already hinted at this as well. You had mass strikes. You had violent uprisings at factories and mines and so on and railroads. Is it possible that we're heading into several decades where we're going to see things like that between, for example, masses of people who've become kind of turned into not even a proletariat but a lumpenproletariat as a result of automation being ruthlessly
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
push through without political pushback? And is it possible that down the road that will lead to some new labor settlement, some new, whatever the true new deal of the 21st century might be? But as much as possible, I'd like to personally, I'd like to avoid upheaval, right? I don't want to live through the early 20th century.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
No, I share your alarm at what the sort of techno billionaires are up to. And I'm about as pessimistic as you put it. And what I put my hope in is democracy and democracy, not just as going to the- I've got some bad news, Sora. No, no, not just going to the ballot. Democracy, not as just going to the ballot box every few years, but the idea that
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
technology, economy, all these things are not, they shouldn't just be sort of left to their own devices and we say, well, inevitably it's gonna lead us in this or that direction, but no, people should have political input in how AI is rolled out, how it affects labor markets, how, you know, the shape that the market takes and so on.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
Right. That's what I'm saying is, is there going to be, I think, just logically speaking, there's going to be pushback. And again, the only question is, is it, you know, ferocious upheaval of the kind that I think none of us would like, or will there a kind of wisdom reign like it did in the 1930s when elites
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
came to realize that for the sake of social order, they need to give more, bottom line, to give more and not just fuck one way. That's my hope.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
Yeah. So I agree with Adam in the sense that what we see is too often under the Trumpians, but also under the Biden administration. These two, as Adam pointed out, have actually been in a kind of continuity. The Biden administration came in and kept the tariffs against certain Chinese goods, in fact, expanded them to electric vehicle components and so on.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
So there's this broad attempt by the American ruling class to try to have a different political economy. And I agree that what they're doing including under Trump too, is not enough.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
Where I disagree is the idea that the sectoral mix of an economy between agriculture, services, manufacturing, and so on is impossible to change or re-engineer because in a way, the tradition that I look to, the Hamiltonian tradition, it wasn't inevitable that the US would become an industrial superpower, a manufacturing superpower. It was a result of policies advanced by the Hamiltonians.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
And when I say the Hamiltonians, I don't just mean Alexander Hamilton himself, although he laid down the vision, but a series of political leaders who advanced it.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
Yeah. The triple foundations where you can summarize them in kind of one word terms as tariff, canal, and bank. Talking about the early republic's economy, the tariff being, of course, an attempt to protect America's nascent manufacturing sector from the manufacturing superpower of that time, which was Great Britain.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
And the Brits, as Hamilton knew well, really were determined to turn and maintain America as a kind of backwater, a swampy backwater that was a resource pool for them and that would be a captive market for their manufacturers. In fact, in 1721, the British Board of Trade declared, quote, that the colonies, lacking their own manufacturers, will always remain dependent on Great Britain.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
So knowing that, the Hamiltonians said, no, we're going to protect our nascent industries with tariffs by protecting also the sort of maintaining industrial workers, trained, competent industrial workers in the country. But not just that, and that's the part where I think the Trumpians are getting it wrong by just doing tariffs.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
He also did, you mentioned the bank, which ensures the steady flow, disciplined flow of credit and the idea of, that the financial system should serve the real economy. That is, we don't have finance for its own sake. And that's why banking, for much of the country, wasn't nearly as important as it is today. Wall Street now plays this overweening role in the economy. The Hamiltonians stopped that.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
And then when we say canal, it means infrastructure, which today might mean different things than canals.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
America's Factory Reset with Adam Tooze and Sohrab Ahmari
Apparently, no, today it still means canal.