Factually! with Adam Conover - Why Billionaires Should Be Banned with Ingrid Robeyns

Episode Date: May 22, 2024

This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/FACTUALLY and get on your way to being your best self.We're happy to have conversations about eliminating poverty, but why are we so reluctant to talk about eradicating extreme wealth? Poverty is commonly regarded as an indication of a struggling society, and a tiny number of people controlling a disproportionately large amount of wealth should be seen similarly. Political philosopher Ingrid Robeyns, author of Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth, joins Adam to explore how imposing limits on personal wealth accumulation can benefit society, democracy, and surprisingly even improve the lives of the wealthy. Find Ingrid's book at factuallypod.com/booksSUPPORT THE SHOW ON PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/adamconoverSEE ADAM ON TOUR: https://www.adamconover.net/tourdates/SUBSCRIBE to and RATE Factually! on:» Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/factually-with-adam-conover/id1463460577» Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0fK8WJw4ffMc2NWydBlDyJAbout Headgum: Headgum is an LA & NY-based podcast network creating premium podcasts with the funniest, most engaging voices in comedy to achieve one goal: Making our audience and ourselves laugh. Listen to our shows at https://www.headgum.com.» SUBSCRIBE to Headgum: https://www.youtube.com/c/HeadGum?sub_confirmation=1» FOLLOW us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/headgum» FOLLOW us on Instagram: https://instagram.com/headgum/» FOLLOW us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@headgum» Advertise on Factually! via Gumball.fmSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is a HeadGum Podcast. Hello and welcome to Factually. I'm Adam Conover. It's okay, I don't know anything Hello and welcome to Factually, I'm Adam Conover. Thank you so much for joining me on the show again. You know, we all know that poverty is a bad thing. And I think most of us agree that the world would be a better place if poverty didn't exist or at least were greatly reduced.

It's not just the human suffering that makes poverty bad. It's also bad for an entire society if a large group of people can barely survive. That's why LBJ waged a war on poverty, and in the booming 1960s, the poverty rate indeed went down a huge 39%. But if we won a couple battles on poverty back then, we have lost the war since. You know, we had a 13% poverty rate in 1980

and an 11.5% poverty rate in 2000, but that rate was basically the same last year, 23 years later. And you know, we talked to some extent in this country about how poverty is bad. We should talk about it more, but you know what we almost never discuss? How bad extreme wealth is.

The super wealthy are bad for our society. America has 800 billionaires. They're mainly men and it is obviously bad that these people have so much money. Because just as being poor makes you less likely to be able to participate in society as a citizen, huge amounts of wealth give you a gross and unfair amount of political power.

And you know what? Since we live in a democracy, I think that's a bad thing. You know, we're happy to have conversations about getting rid of poverty. But why are we so much less comfortable talking about eradicating extreme wealth? Because if extreme wealth is just as damaging to our society as poverty, why can't we imagine waging a war on that too? It's not just a foregone conclusion that we live in a society where some people are unelected god emperors

with treasure palaces and apocalypse bunkers and unilateral control over our political system. It is not right or natural that unearned hereditary wealth can be passed down for centuries. Last time I checked, we had a couple revolutions to end that sort of thing. And then we were all taught in school that it's bad.

So, concentration of wealth and power is simply undemocratic. And if you think democracy is the right system to decide how we run our society collectively, well, I think you'd have to say that that concentration is bad. So, what kind of arguments can we actually make against the existence of the wealthy? What limits should be placed on wealth and why? This is a radical conversation to have, but it gets less radical the more you consider it. There's a name for the philosophical view

that wealth should be drastically limited. It's called Limitarianism. And my guest today came up with this view and has advanced the very best arguments for it. But before we get into the argument, which I know you're gonna love, I just want to remind you that if you want to support this show, you can do so on Patreon. Head to patreon.com slash Adam Conover.

Five bucks a month gets you every episode of the show ad-free. And you can join our awesome online community full of people who love to laugh and learn and complain about billionaires just as much as you do. Patreon.com slash Adam Conover. We'd love to see you there. And now let's welcome today's guest. My guest today is the political philosopher Ingrid Robbins. She holds the chair in ethics of institutions

at the Ethics Institute of Utrecht University. And her new book is called Limitarianism, the Case Against Extreme Wealth. Please welcome Ingrid Robbins. Ingrid, thank you so much for being on the show with us today. Thank you for having me. So tell me a little bit about your background,

the work that you do and why you have concluded that it is a bad thing for us to have billionaires striding around the earth. Yes, so I'm actually gonna argue that it's not just bad to have billionaires, but that it's bad to have decamillionaires, people who have more than 10 million euros, pounds, dollars in a context such as the Netherlands.

But I'm sure we will get to that later. So I'm a professor of political philosophy. I'm also trained as an economist and I have been working in my academic research for the last 20 years on questions of inequality. And often when we think about inequality, especially economists, they focus on the poor. They think we should solve poverty. But I think we've now entered a phase in the history of human societies where we should also really increasingly worry about wealth and wealth concentration. Of course, I'm not the first to say this.

I'm not the last to say this, but what I've tried to do is to write a book where I focused on the moral arguments. Why shouldn't we have people that are too rich? And so tell me what some of those arguments are. Why shouldn't we? Yeah. So it's actually, I have a number of them. There are different types.

One is that often the money is earned in a way that makes it stained. So people should not have gotten it in the first place. An important argument is that it's too much wealth harms societies, either because it undermines democracy or because it's incompatible with principles of ecological sustainability. And then there is the fundamental philosophical argument that I think nobody can say they deserve to be super rich and deserve in a moral sense.

And there's a final argument, which some people don't take too serious, which is that it's actually not good for the super rich themselves because it doesn't make them happy. Yes. Well. I'm sorry. That's the funniest argument to go up to Jeff Bezos

and be like, yeah, dude, but you're sad. I saw you crying. You are not a happy man. The thing is there is actually some evidence that a wealth accumulation works as an addiction. So if we are worried as human beings that our fellow human beings can be addicted to any type of drugs and we see that also in the brain, accumulating

money, money works in the same way, then we should probably also feel some empathy for those who are just locked up in this, not just desire, but this compulsion to just keep accumulating money. It does change the character of the super rich. That is basically the, the argument. this compulsion to just keep accumulating money. It does change the character of the super rich. That is basically the, the arguments. And let me put it politely, not necessarily for the better. Yeah.

Yeah. It must be a compulsion to keep accumulating money because there is a point, I think we know from social science very soon where, you know, you earn a certain amount of money and your happiness tops out. You don't get happier if you have $11 million versus $10 million, but there's a compulsion to keep earning more and to keep growing and growing. And I feel it myself sometimes too,

when I'm making this podcast, I'm toying around doing standup comedy, and then I'm spending my nights writing a new YouTube video because I wanna get a couple more views. And sometimes I go, wait, why am I doing this? Does it match my goals? And I look through, yeah, I think it does right now, but it also might just be that compulsion

to do more and more and more all the time. And I could see that really, if you're a banker on Wall Street or something like that and your entire job is that number at the bottom of your spreadsheet, there would be a compulsion to have more and more all the time, and there would be nothing else behind it. Yeah. So talking about Wall Street, there was a Wall Street trader,

I can't remember the exact year, but I mean, about 10 years ago, who wrote a piece in the New York Times and then later also a book where he mentioned that he was a Wall Street trader. He had no kids, no philanthropic goal to work for, no debts. And still he was angry because his annual bonus had only been like three million and why wasn't it more? And then he realized this was really like an addiction he had earlier, had some alcohol addiction, I think.

And so that's really, the idea of the addiction is it's not an idea. There is really some, some evidence, uh, in how it works. And, uh, there's also an interesting little book written called the psychology of money by somebody who advises, who's a financial advisor, who also says the only way to really not start to do kind of crazy things or criminal things or to let it take over your life is by just saying, okay, until here and not further. This is my goal.

And then that's all I need. That's all I want. And it liberates people to not want to want to have more. It gives peace of mind. But anyway, I actually think this argument for the super rich themselves, I mentioned it as the last one because I think the really important ones are that it harms us and that it's undeserved.

These are the fundamental ones. Well, let's get to those first. I mean, that was a very good piece of practical advice for Jeff Bezos, if he's listening to the show. Set a limit and then just stop Jeff and get some sleep. But let's- He can look at what his ex-wife did. I know.

Because she is giving it all away and she's giving it away in a very interesting manner because she's not like deciding what the money must go to, but she's giving it to organizations who would then themselves take control and can decide what to do with it. Yeah, and we've talked about that in a past episode of the show

on billionaire philanthropy and the problems with it. And she's perhaps doing, there's still problems with philanthropy at that level, but you know, she is sort of the least bad with someone who's giving money away for that reason. If you wanna commend that at all. Let's talk though about this very enticing argument you make that no one deserves that amount of money.

You say no one can really argue that they deserve that amount of money. I have to say, I live in the United States. I hear people make that argument every day. I've made, every time I make a video about Elon Musk, people say, oh, well, why don't you have all that money? It's because you suck. That's the only reason you don't have it.

If you were as good and smart and wonderful a person as Elon, you would have earned the money because he deserved it and you didn't. So what is your counter-argument to that? Yeah, so I mean, what you're just describing is really the way this, I mean, I think the word we should really use is ideology. This meritocrat neoliberal ideology

that puts always the focus on the individual and thinks that the individual deserves something and if they are economically successful it's because of their own, something to do with themselves. If they're miserable, they can be blamed. That kind of framework, that kind of ideology which we have increasingly come to think is not the only way to look at human beings. And actually once upon a time, we looked differently at human beings. This way of thinking has also not fallen from the sky.

It has come from a deliberate movement of first thinkers and then politicians who have increasingly made us think like this. So this is just by way of background. So what do I think is based on what I've been reading in various types of scientific fields. What I do, I think is the real way we should look at human beings. I think we should put luck central and luck comes in different forms. The first form is what you could call biological luck or the natural lottery. The genes you have are not of your own choice.

So you can't say I chose my genes. I, the credits for my good genes are mine because you didn't choose your genes. Your talents, your creativity. Also the stamina. Are you able to work really hard? Are you able to, to do long days? Difference quite radically between people. There is only so much of this that can be really trained and learned.

It is also just kind of difference between people. And if you happen to have what we philosophers call drone, a good ticket from the natural lottery, you should count your blessings rather than saying, look, what a fantastic human person I am. So that is the first type of luck. And the problem and why I focus on luck is because luck can never be the basis for dessert. That is the fundamental equation in this, in this argument, that if you want to say that you deserve something, you must always trace your achievement back to something for which you can take credit.

And you can't by definition take credit for luck. So the first type of luck is natural luck. The second type is social luck. The parents you were born with, the social class, the city, the country. If you're born in the U S your opportunities are vastly bigger than if you're born in, born in say Afghanistan. Yes. So, um, and we don't born in, born in say Afghanistan. Yes.

So, and we don't choose where, where we are born. We don't choose our parents, which also means we don't choose our inheritance, if any, because that's also a type of luck. And then the last type of luck is what economists call market luck. So, if you have two entrepreneurs who are equally willing to really go the extra mile, put in all the hours, take the risks, then it can still be the case that one of them, because of the way markets work and they often allocate the big prices to one winner, its winner takes all markets, that their luck also plays a role. And while luck may only play a small role in deciding who takes the big

price and who basically disappears or takes a smaller role, say as a, as an artist. Luck sometimes is really the pivotal thing. So there is an interesting book written by an economist called Robert Frank, an American economist. It's called success and luck. So there is an interesting book written by an economist called Robert Frank, an American economist. It's called success and luck. I think that's the title. And he explains based on, on, on, on studies that for example, if companies

have to decide which CEO they need to hire, all these CEOs are extremely talented, they're very skilled, they are experienced. What then makes the difference? these CEOs are extremely talented, they're very skilled, they are experienced. What then makes the difference, it's this tiny little bit of luck. So even though luck may not play in absolute numbers, a very big role in deciding who becomes very wealthy and who doesn't, it is the factor that makes a difference. So if we then embrace this view that luck plays such a big role in our lives, then I think the right attitudes, if we're economically successful,

if we become rich is really to be generous towards those that were less lucky. And that I totally agree is really fundamentally at odds with the prevailing view in society. Yeah, with entrepreneurs, so much of the time, it matters to be in the right place at the right time. That, you know, if you were selling masks or video conference software in early 2020,

you know, something very lucky happened to you that March, right, that caused your businesses skyrocket. It wasn't because of your great intelligence, you didn't know what was going to happen, et cetera. Or if you were, I don't know, making steel at the right time during World War II or whatever it was that these things happen that we can't take personal responsibility for.

I mean, I used to, one of the first philosophical questions I can remember asking myself as a child was, why am I here in the United States? Why is my consciousness here in the United States, right? In this body as opposed to any other, right? And it's still something that I find fundamentally mysterious. The fact that there's many humans and I am but one of them

and I happen to be this one and why am I not a different one? And it's a cosmic dice roll. And- Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And once Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And once you start to really realize like the enormous luck, we have to be born in a country where,

I mean, I feel still everyday blessed that I'm also in a country. So I prefer countries that have decent social security systems. I mean, decent welfare states also for the, I mean, the compatri states also for the, for the, I mean, the, uh, compatriots that are less lucky people who are disabled or who become unemployed or whatever.

Um, yeah, I still feel lucky that I happened to be here. I could also have been somewhere else. Yeah. And I think once you realize this, I mean, so it's really, it's, it's, so it's both like, how do we treat each other? How do we allocate kind of, um, yeah, not just financial rewards, but also, um, I guess, empathy to other people, because it's not just this works, not just towards those that are extremely successful.

I think we should still congratulate people. So you can congratulate me with my book. I will, I will take the congratulations. I can congratulate me with my book. I will, I will take the congratulations. I can congratulate you with your show. I still, all of that is fine because in the end we do, we do put in an effort and it would be kind of strange to, to treat each other as determinist robots. That's not what I'm arguing for, but I still kind of a bit of, a bit of kind of but I still kind of a bit of modesty in, which really I think changed the way we are generous or not,

but also the way we organize society. Yeah. Well, let's talk about some of the other reasons for that humility in a little bit, but I want to get to first, what I think is your main argument, which is that billionaires and people who are over a decade millionaires are bad for the rest of society.

That this sort of concentration is a bad thing in and of itself, even if one were to think one deserves it. Yeah. It's even if a very deserving billionaire were to exist and we were all to say, yes, very good job. We have no problems with how you did it. And you know, with you having this money that would still be bad. And tell me why you think that is. Yeah.

So I think the case of how wealth concentration undermines democracy, so the principle of political equality is the clearest and especially in the US. I mean, political scientists, American political scientists have written papers and books where they argue that the US is actually no longer

a democracy but an oligarchy or plutocracy because of the way money influences politics. And money can influence politics in different ways. The most obvious is donations, donations to political parties or to candidates. And I mean, like, and that is, I think a significant difference between the US and Europe because we have quite strict rulings on how much you can donate to a political candidate. Actually in, in, in my country, in the Netherlands, the last government made that rule even more stricter. They decided that each person can give a maximum of 100,000 euros per

person per year to politics. Of course, those who want to really have a bigger influence on politics will still try to find a way around, but it's difficult. And also all the donations to political parties are in an open register so everybody can see what happens. Wow. In the U S as you know, much better than I do. I mean, money can really buy politics quite significantly.

And it's also quite difficult to stand for political office if you don't have what they call a war chest. Yeah. So yeah, so that is the, that is unfortunately the reality. So that's one. And then what political scientists have shown is that the policies that follow are really skewed towards the interests of the rich. Yeah.

And that is, that is the first problem. The second problem is, or the second mechanism in which this happens is... Let me just dwell on the first problem a little bit, if that's okay. That, you know, I think we sort of don't talk enough about what we mean by democracy and political equality, which is that it's the ability of average people to have a say in how the country is run and for there to be some level of equality there. And if a small number of people have a vast amount more power than everybody

else, that's a major step back towards a monarchy or towards a aristocracy where a small number of people are literally running the society that we live in. And it's one of those things where I was like, oh, I was just brought up being told that's what the American Revolution was about. Right? Like that's not American values

is for a small number of people to lord you know, lord over the rest of us. But that's what inevitably happens when there's too much concentrated wealth. Yes, and I really think it is... I mean, the book that I wrote, when I talk about it in continental Europe, I often get the reaction, yeah, yeah, but you know, this is really an American problem,

what you're describing. And it's not true. I mean, I have also lots of, uh, scientific studies that show, and also arguments that show that some of the problems are also really, they're universal problems and they play in Europe too. But the problem about how money translate, so basically financial power, translating political power is everywhere, but it's, it's especially, I think a problem in the U S because the walls that you have to build between the sphere of money and the sphere of politics in the U S are, they're very weak.

Yeah. Also because, I mean, if you say that companies that give money is a form of speech, yeah, then of course, I mean, what, what, what is this kind of reasoning? And, and that is, that is a, um, I guess, uh, a very specific, uh, problem for the U S it's funny that you mentioned monarchies because I've lived all my life in monarchies first in Belgium and then in the Netherlands, but you know, our monarchs have like almost no power. Yeah.

They, in Belgium, they say that actually the more monarch keeps the country together. So that's the main role they play. They're kept in such a little box, you know, I mean, every, I knew some people who are a little mad about all the gossip about, you know, the British royal family. Um, and I'm like that, that is all there for at this point. All they, they're just there for everyone else to gossip about. This is the only purpose.

They have no other role, so. Yeah, they play a different role. They have in any case, very little political power. I think the question you asked about what is democracy really is a fundamental one. So it is not just having the right to vote. It's also being able to vote. So for example, not having you being, uh, hindered from voting. It's also, I mean, all the, uh, all the other factors that can

prevent people from voting, but also political participation. In the end, the ideal democracy, which will, of course, which is an ideal. So we will never be able to fully reach that is that we govern ourselves together. That means that everybody who wants to and has an interest has an equal potential influence on society. And we are very far from this. And the influence of the disproportionate influence of the very rich on politics is

not just directly via politics, but also, for example, because of the way rich on politics is not just directly via politics, but also for example, because of the way they influence the public sphere. Yes. So if you have somebody like Rupert Murdoch, who just kind of buys up first in Australia, then in the UK and now in the US, who buys up media power and really becomes a very important factor that shapes the public discourse, then you create, from money, you create power that is a form of political power. Politics is not just about voting. I mean, this is an open door, we all know this,

but we have to then really think like, what are the preconditions for a robust democracy? And I think that having, for example, also public institutions that are outside the sphere of money, like have education outside, so no, so have basically high quality public education, high quality public universities, high quality public media. These are all, I think, very important to get

a kind of political ecosystem that protects democracy. And the problem is that money undermines this. You know, folks, I try to be pretty healthy. I hit the gym, I walk everywhere, I try to get fresh air and vitamin D whenever I can. But living a healthy lifestyle doesn't end the moment I walk through the front door. Everything that comes through the front door. Everything that comes through the front door of your home reflects the type of lifestyle you're trying to live.

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Thrivemarket.com slash factually. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. You know, life these days can feel nonstop. I'm constantly wishing for a few extra hours in the day just to keep up. But let's be real, it's not just about the clock ticking away. It is about juggling a gazillion things and struggling to figure out what's actually important, like catching up with friends, having hearts to heart with family, or finding moments to actually let yourself just be alone enjoying your hobbies.

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you can switch therapists at any time for no extra charge. So learn to make time for what makes you happy with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash factually today to get 10% off your first month. That's better help. H E L P.com slash factually. There's a broader vision of democracy that I'm always trying to promote on this show, which is cause the one that we're brought up with is so limited to you vote, you donate, maybe you protest and hold a sign, that's it. And that's all democracy is. But no, democracy is having participation in

all of how your society is run and making sure that it reflects the will of all of the people. And that includes things like media or the conditions under which you work or the town that you live in. So if a billionaire is so powerful that they can buy an entire communications media and start bending it to their will, like Elon Musk did with Twitter, or if a billionaire is so powerful that they can buy your entire town

and control the buildings that you live in. Like, I forget the name of the guy, but the Warren Buffett's partner, who's a billionaire, designed his own dorm room for like a thousand live in, like, I forget the name of the guy, but the Warren Buffett's partner, who's a billionaire, you know, designed his own dorm room for like a thousand students in, I believe, UC Berkeley. That's like a horrible jail. But he was able to do it because he had so much money. He could donate it and say,

build a building like this, because it's my idea. And they're doing it, and it's gonna be horrible. Everyone who lives there is gonna be miserable. But the only reason it happened is because this man had so much power. That kind of power over the world the rest of us live in is undemocratic, even when it doesn't touch our political system properly conceived, you know, narrowly conceived. It's it's we don't want to live in a society where one or two people

are able to control the rest of us like that. That's not the fucking point of this. Yeah. And there's actually two things that make it even worse. One is that once, so often the super rich, the multimillionaires, they also kind of, they used politics, then basically politicians, for their own purposes. So they, I mean, so Abigail Disney made a film

about her, the company of her grandfather. And she talks about the Disney park in California. In Anaheim? Yes, exactly. I was trying to find a word, thanks for asking me. I'm an expert in Southern California geography. If I have any questions for you about Utrecht, you'll let me know.

Yes, that's a deal. So, and the movie is actually very, so it's a documentary and it's very revealing because it doesn't, it really shows how like, they also, because they become so important and so influential, the local government also just starts to do stuff for the company that makes it even richer. This mechanism where really you see the, I mean, I described in the book a couple of really, really bad cases like the kleptocrats, which we have in, I mean, Putin is a good example, Berlusconi in Italy was a good example we had, but you have them everywhere.

And, and so it becomes really bad at all levels. So that's an additional problem. But another problem is that the super rich, the billionaires also no longer become so rich that they kind of almost no longer need democracy. So we ordinary folks, we need each other. We need each other to survive, to have good lives. But if you look at what people like Peter Thiel does, so I don't know whether how much this has been discussed in the US, but I'm sure I don't know all the details myself, but he took on

additional citizenship in New Zealand, which is very, very difficult to get. The reason he could get it was because of some contributions to the economy of New Zealand. And then he needed that because he wanted to buy some unspoiled lands. And that land, which is close to a lake that is actually sacred for the local indigenous people, the Maori. He can go there and live there with his friends when the apocalypse hits the US. And then you also, of course, have the super rich with their bunkers. So they have all these strategies. I mean, Musk going to space is another example, rather than trying to fix the problems that we have collectively on this planet, they have these escape fantasies, but some of them, it's not just fantasies. I mean, if you, if you, if you have a private jet or you have multiple

private jets and you just have bought a really nice piece of land in New Zealand and you just say, okay, when shit hits the fan, I just take my friends and we fly there. Yeah. Well, this is a fantasy that so many people have. I think it's not just a fantasy of the wealthy. The average people have the fantasy of, I want a little compound out in the middle of nowhere.

I want to just, you know, have some goats and, you know, not need anyone and have a safe place for me and my polycule or whatever it is people want to, you know, get together. But, you know, I think for average people, well, we can't really do it because we're so dependent on others ultimately at the end of the day. Billionaires are able to live in the fantasy world where their dependency on others

is so abstracted away from them, is so small. They don't see the Amazon factory workers making minimum wage 12 hour days, peeing in bottles that they are actually dependent on for their wealth. They have the ideology they did it themselves and that they can go sequester themselves separately away from everyone. I'd like to get into the economic argument. What is bad about having a small number of people with incredible

concentrations of wealth for the economy and for, you know, everyone else's earnings? Yes. So I actually don't, uh, in my book, I don't spend a lot of time talking about the economic argument because as a, as a philosopher for me, the economy is a means to an ends and the ends is the things that are valuable. It is our wellbeing, our flourishing, our freedoms, our possibility to shape the life, how we want it to have. So the economy is a means to that.

Still, I understand that, that the, you want to have a flourishing economy because it really helps us to have these good lives. Um, and so many people are actually primarily moved by the economic arguments for limiting inequality. And the argument is that increasingly the rhetorics that we've been told since the 80s, namely that if you allow the rich to become as rich as they can and inequality is like a price to pay for them becoming so rich, everybody will benefit.

So that's trickle down theory. Trickle down theory is just a piece of a piece of theory. It's actually it's proven not to be true. Has that ever happened? I don't think so. No. So the, the, the Australian economist, uh, John Quiggin has a really nice term for this. He calls them, he has written a book called Zombie Economics.

So basically he says there's a couple of ideas, actually they're dead, but once in a while they keep coming back. And of course with trickle down economics, we've seen in the UK that Liz Truss, who was the prime minister for what, like 80 days, that she really believed in trickle down economics. Trickle down economics is kind of a, it's like a pretext to be able to let the rich pay fewer taxes because we see that this doesn't work. If you want to grow the economy, you need to invest in the human capital of everybody.

That means make sure people are healthy, that the communities are safe, and that they have good education and decent housing. And then you really release the potential of people. And then of course you need not too much bureaucracy and all that kind of stuff. And that means that if you reduce inequality, it actually has a positive effect on economic growth. And the opposite, so the idea that inequality is kind of the price to pay for overall more economic growth was the view that neoliberal economists have been pushing in the seventies and the eighties. And that was standard, standardly believed to be true.

Until I don't know the exact year, but at some point, some years ago, even the IMF, which is seen as the headquarters of this kind of neoliberal thinking, at some point said, no, inequality can really become too big. And then it just independent of all the other factors, it hurts the economy. So there's even no longer, even a business case for inequality. There is however, a case for those that are super rich because they can still become more richer and richer and richer. Right.

They can say, oh, it's working great for me. We can say, Hey, we've been trying your strategy of inequality, fueling the economy for the past 50 years, at least. Doesn't seem like it's going that great. Right. Nobody thinks the world economy is in very healthy shape right now, nor has it has, nor has it been since the nineties, I would say that people were like, Oh, things are going great.

Um, and inequality has skyrocketed. It seems like these two things have gone together and that, you know, might be time to, to try something new in terms of microeconomics. So I really think the problem is that, that, um, we, and then when I say we, I mean, ordinary folks, we, we like not to talk about the, about economics. We think economics is complicated. We think it's boring. So we leave all of that to other people.

And then of course, when politicians tell us something about the economy, yeah, we have no idea whether what, so we basically believe them because they have beautiful eyes or because we think they're a guy with whom we can go and have a beer at the barbecue. So. You listen to the economist because they have beautiful eyes. I don't know.

No, I don't know what the reason is, but I think we have, we, we should really empower ourselves in terms of economic literacy so that we are able to really question what politicians are telling us when they propose economic policies. Well, I've heard this argument and I actually would really like to get someone on the show to dive into it. The argument that, you know, economics has been treated as perhaps too hard of a science for the past few decades and that, you know, politicians will tend to listen to economists. The economist says, blah, blah, blah. And so, oh, well, the economist said it, we must do it without realizing that, you know, economics is a and say, oh, well, the economist said it, we must do it, without realizing that economics

is a very interpretive field, that there's a lot of ideology in it, and that we've been listening to a field that's been dominated by a certain ideology of economics for a very long time without really questioning it, which is not the case in sciences such as physics, climatology, et cetera. These are sciences that have a lot more objective reality

to it, but economics is a social science. And it's as though we were all listening to Freudian psychoanalysts as though they were telling us the truth. Well, there's a lot of truth in it, but we know that that's one school among many. And that's sort of the same thing that's happened with economics. Yeah, no, that's absolutely true. Yeah, so basically, yeah, you hit the nail. Yeah, that's just true.

Yeah, so I think, but I should also say, I think the politicians, when they talk about economics, they really cherry pick what they like. And they also cherry pick, of course, the economists they will put into their, as their advisors. Because economists, although I also really, I have a lot of criticism on economics as an academic discipline. I also think, for example, economists have been arguing for pricing, uh, the damage we do to the environment for, for as long as I can remember. I remember when I was an economic student and that's like more than 30 years ago,

that we had a professor already having a whole team of researchers talking about what economists think call internalizing the negative externalities into the price. So basically, how can you make sure that if somebody sells a product, that the harm to the environment is actually factored into the price so that they will sell less and that there will be some compensation.

And there you just see that we are still ruining the environment. Yeah. So I also, so I think it's a mixed thing about how much we should blame economists as a profession, but I do think it's definitely the case that they are, they have become very, um, yeah, they've weeded out all the heterodox, what we tend to call heterodox schools. And they've also, uh, and then I'm talking really as somebody who first studied economics and then studied philosophy, they have tried to pretend to be like physics. Some, some, some, um, economic methodologies call this the physics

envy among economists and they, there's papers written about this, but, um, economics, because it's about society ultimately is also about how we, what we owe to each other and that is the core of ethics and political philosophy. So you can't separate economics from normative questions. What is good? What is desirable? What is better? And that for me is really, uh, yeah.

Where I like to make a contribution. And economics is built on, it's a human thing, right? It money is something that humans invented, right? Uh, I love, you know, the writer, Yuval Noah Harari, who I don't always agree with, but has a wonderful argument about, you know, poverty is imaginary. We made it up.

It's not a feature of the natural universe, you know? It's a human thing that we created that some people have a lot of money and some people don't. And people tomorrow could decide to do something different and different rules would apply. And that's a fundamental way that economics is different from physics because the same is not true. So, but this is here talking about poverty.

I mean, this is really a very, very interesting example of how economics is not just economics, but also economic policy judgments are ideological. Because one of the arguments that have been made in favor of capitalism in the form that we have it is, look at what capitalism did with the global poor. The number of people living in absolute poverty has really plummeted. And it's true. And then people looking at those data will say, yeah, capitalism, no other system has ever done this. So capitalism is the best system we have for the poor.

And that's where their argument ends. And then basically we have to start to ask question, what is that poverty line? It turns out that poverty line is $2.2 per chasing power parity per day. That means what you can buy with $2.2 in the U S per day. It's not what you can buy with $2.2 in Antananarivo or a Kabul or wherever. So that means that line is way too low. So you should have like say $11 and then you still see that there are still many, many people in poverty. But I think the much

more fundamental question that economists and politicians should ask themselves is, all right, it's true. The number of people that live in absolute poverty has become much, much smaller. But what had been alternative scenarios that would also have been economically feasible? And are there scenarios in which that number would have gone down much more?

And I think the answer is yes. Because if you look at what we created, all of us together with the global economy over the last couple of decades. And if you look at the absolute shares that went to the global North and then mainly to, to shareholders in the global North and what went to the garment workers in the global South, we've given them breadcrumbs. We have taken really the vast share for ourselves.

And that means that everything in the end is also a question about how do you distribute what you produce together. And that means that it's true that poverty is in that sense, well, imaginary. I think, I don't know what I would use that word, but it is to some extent what we choose because we could have chosen for a different division of the economic gains in which we would have much fewer people in poverty. So people say, hey, look at this. A whole lot of people used to make one dollar a day. Now they make two dollars a day.

Capitalism is a big success. They don't point out that a bunch of other people who used to, I don't know, make $1 million, now make $10 million. And that's where most of the gains went. And like, well, hey, those people who make $2 now, they could have had five or 10 or 20 under a different system.

You're ignoring the fact that you are, we still have kept most of it for ourselves. Shout out to Clareton for supporting this episode and for providing us with samples. that we still have kept most of it for ourselves. ["Spring Day"] Shout out to Claritin for supporting this episode and for providing us with samples. You know, my ability to conduct interviews on this show pretty much depends on me being able to have smooth conversations with guests.

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and use promo code Adam at checkout. That's joindeleteeme.com slash Adam code Adam. I think though that we've gone too deep in this interview without getting to the most radical part of your argument because we've set the stage for it. As a result of all this, you argue that we literally should not allow the ultra wealthy to be so wealthy

that we should put a cap on the amount that people can, is it earn or is it the amount of wealth that they can have, what is it? It's half its wealth, so it's what we have. But let me just give you a bit of context. So I say that we should strive to have a world so it's an ideal. It's not something we're going to implement like tomorrow. I say that we should strive to have a world in which nobody is super rich.

And I propose two caps. And one is the higher is what you could call the political or the institutional. And we should reorganize society and the economy in such a way that we keep inequality within bounds. Now, then obviously the question is where do you put that cap? And the exact answer should be something like it should be at a level where the damages to the political system and to the environment of the super wealthy are minimized, but there's still enough room to let people who are motivated by financial gain do their thing. Right.

Those who really only will work because they want to become rich, they should have enough space and then, um, that's basically the trade off that you try to make. We got to let those sickos cook, you know, like they're, they're so motivated by money. We got to, there's people who are born like that every day. We got to give them something to do or they're going to go nuts. Yes. But the question is, so some people say to me, Oh, but actually there was a book review in the economist that says, no, this is crazy because if people do

not know that they could become super, super, super rich, they will no longer become entrepreneurs. And then my answer is how, why do you think this is the case? There's no evidence. So I think if people could become very well off, they could become really rich, but not extremely rich. I think they would still try to be successful entrepreneurs. So, uh, so I think this is still try to be successful entrepreneurs. So I think this is again, a kind of almost an exchange of rhetorics.

But what you should then do is to organize society in such a way that, of course, the taxation would be much more progressive. That there would be taxation on capital gains and on income from, so income from entrepreneurship at the same level as an income from labor, which we don't have now, because now we tax labor much more than we tax capital. Yeah. And, and I guess it, and then if you ask what would be the number, I think it would also depend on how society looks like.

So the more you have in a society, public goods, a decent healthcare system, public education, and so forth, things outside of the sphere of the market and profit-making capitalism, the more you have those things, the lower that level can be. So I suggest, but this is really like a ballpark figure and as a start for debate on this, that in a country

such as the one as where I live, the Netherlands, where we do have a public pension system, all of us are entitled to public pension, which is roughly around the poverty line. And then we try to save for having additional pension. And we have high quality public education and we have a healthcare system for all, which is, it's like, not like the British system, which is completely public. it's a regulated, more mixed system, I say for a society like this, 10 million.

I know in the US people would say, 10 million. Oh, 10 million. That's not enough, I can't even, I can't even send my kid to private school and like fuel my private jet for 10 million. Exactly, you know, we don't need private school. So that is the thing of course, that you could say, well, I mean, I don't mind if people say, well, you know, in the U S perhaps in current

circumstances, make it, I don't know, 20 or 50, or even if you want 100 million, but definitely not a billion, you don't need a billion, nobody needs a billion. So I think the idea that, that you hear in American politics that we shouldn't have any billionaires is just not ambitious enough. So that is the political limit. And then there is a second limit, which is really just the answer to the question, how much do I as an individual need? And there I did some research together with colleagues from economic sociology and we asked a representative survey sample of Dutch people where they say, so we gave them descriptions

of the material quality of life of imaginary families and we asked to give them a label. Is this person poor, reasonably well-off, well- very well off, rich, so rich, nobody, the phrasing was, nobody needs so much money, this is too much. And then, so we increasingly made the descriptions more affluent and we were able then to make an estimate of where the Dutch would draw that line. And for a family of two parents, two children, uh, data for 2018. So that's pre inflation. We, they, we found that they said that around a 2.2 million euros, people say, okay, now it's enough for this family.

So I think I therefore say in the book, I think if you have as an individual, if you have 1 million in a country such as the Netherlands, I have to repeat this. You have enough. And I should say, I often give, I often give lectures to citizens where I'm in a, in a debate. And I, and then I'm sometimes challenged that somebody says, but why a million, why not much? Isn't that too low?

And then I just ask people in the room, okay, who here in this, in this room has less than a million and still feels they have everything they need. And then all those hands go up. Yeah. I just think we don't need, I mean, also you should know, if you just look at the data, the vast majority of people do not have so much money. Yeah. So it is just this fixation with always having more,

more, more that has become this almost like ideological thing that has spread throughout the world. And I think we should get that back into the bottle. The argument that you're making, I'm imagining you arguing with a billionaire, right? Who says, well, hold on a second, you can't do this. I need this money. And then you're like, okay, who here,

who here's happy with their, you know, much less than a billion dollars and thinks they have everything that they need in the world. And 99% of their hands go up. And then you go back to this billionaire. Okay, why do you need the money? Like, what do you, what do you need it for? Like, what is it, what is it for?

Other than, you know, building monuments to yourself, you know, donating to your favorite causes. Okay, that's fine, but everyone has a favorite cause. Why should you get to choose your favorite cause versus anybody else? It's a status and a power thing. It's really status and power.

And that is really where I think, okay, status and power, there are many, there are different ways in which we can try okay, status and power, there are many, there are different ways in which we can try to acquire status and power. But the problem with money is that if money becomes a thing by which you try to acquire status and power, it harms the rest of us. Because of the reasons we discussed and also because it deprives money to the government who needs that money to alleviate poverty, to build roads and all that other stuff.

You can also have, you can also have status and power with $10 million. You don't need a billion dollars to do it. I agree. I agree. Like, you know, I'm lucky enough that I've been able to donate to a local politician who I care about well enough that I get to go to a little event and shake their hand, you know, and they say thank you. That makes me feel good, and also it's someone I believe in,

and it's within, it's a legal limit, right? It's like $800 here in LA. And you know what? That's plenty, you know what I mean? Get to feel a little bit special, get to help out. I could donate more than that to a local nonprofit, and then maybe they put my name in the newsletter, or whatever it is.

That's a healthy version of this dynamic that people want. It's when you inflate it to the hundred million or the billion level that it becomes toxic, that no one needs quite that much status. Exactly. So the funny thing is that with donations and philanthropy, so I have a chapter in the book that's called, now I forgot the title, it's something like, oh yes, it is, philanthropy is not the solution. That's the title of that chapter. And so basically,

there's something paradoxical almost that I do in that chapter, because on the one hand, I argue that I think all of us should really consider whether we may have too much, because we have, for example, I mean, say upper middle-class people who just were lucky in the, because their houses, they bought a house in say the 90s for just very little money, and then the housing, there was a boom in housing prices nineties for just very little money. And then the housing, there was a boom in housing prices and now they're old and

they're sitting on this house that is worth more than a million. Well, I think should they give a million to their kids? I'm not sure. So, and, or there can be other reasons. So I think the question do I have, can I give more is a question that I think many more people can ask themselves and only those that have more than than a million or 10 million. Yeah.

So that is where I think actually giving is a good thing, but the problem is, uh, when the giving comes with power, then it's problematic. So I think small money donations, small money philanthropy, what everybody can do is very good because it doesn't have any power, but as soon as the donations really entail a form of power or are really wasteful and actually sometimes philanthropy, I mean, you've had an, a whole episode on this, but philanthropy is also a way to really engage in tax avoidance and tax evasion.

So there are, there's also really dirty forms of philanthropy. That's what you should try to. Power hoarding. People build power for themselves via philanthropy, you know, through family foundations. You can't donate the money to your kids without paying a lot of taxes. Instead, you create a foundation and give that to your kids. And now your kids wield political power

because they're distributing billions of dollars or millions of dollars for the rest of their lives. The Patagonia founder did this to much greater acclaim. And I made a video that was very critical of him for essentially hoarding that kind of political power for his family. I mean, this is such a radical proposal. I'm curious, and I love that you say,

the American call that only the far left has in the United States to ban billionaires, right? You'll hear Bernie Sanders, who's on the left of our acceptable, you know, political Overton window in American politics. We'll say there should be no such thing as billionaires. Couple other people as well. That's already a fringe position.

You say that doesn't even go far enough and that we need to ban 100 millionaires, sent to millionaires. Yes. So what would society look like were we to do so? Can you paint us a little bit of a picture of, you know, it's almost like an Ursula K. Le Guin novel. Like what is this fantastical world that you're describing?

But I'd love to hear a little bit about it. Yeah, so I mean, I really think that should be the next book, right? And it's also the last chapter I say, okay, what does this now demand? It demands a different way of organizing the society. I don't know exactly how this would look like, but what I think we should do is, um,

to, so we had in the, in the post war years, so the fifties and the sixties, we had a much better mix of what the government did for us, not just for capital, but for us, for ordinary people. And then the entrepreneurs had also saw themselves really much more as stewards towards the communities. And we had, so we had a mix of different things. And also the government actually was much more, a much more important force for innovation, the self.

Governments in those years were very important for innovations that actually are now part of what makes the billionaires billionaires. So there's something deeply ironic there. And that economy, which I, when I studied economics, was told is called the mixed economy. I think we should have the mixed economy, but we will have it with all the technological advances that we currently have. So basically it's really, and then it should of course be in a way that keeps also the economy and the way we produce stuff within planetary boundaries. Now, if you ask me, how does it look like? There are people who are doing research on this. So,

for example, in the UK, you have Kate Rayward, who has argued for the doughnut economy, doughnut, which is the metaphor for you stay within the planetary boundaries. You don't, what we are currently doing, we're basically over using the planet. It's not that we're going to be to the same degree habitable for our children and grandchildren. And you also try to make sure that everybody has their minimum social needs met. And I think such a world is possible, but it requires, I guess it requires not just a much better international corporation, but also really a different ideology. It is, I think the fee, the, the, the feasibility problem in terms of say,

getting it organized is not the question. The question is, do we want this? And there, I think the U S really is is again in a, in a very particular position because, not only because the ideology of, I mean, what we tend to call the neoliberal ideology is so much stronger in the US than it is for example, in continental Europe, but also because the US is so, so rich. So I'll just give you one. So there is an online publication, the global wealth report, which has zillions of data that where you can learn everything about wealth distribution. But let me just give you one, one statistic, which is what is the share of

wealth, total wealth that, that the U S has of all the wealth that is in the world. So we know that America has about 4.2% of the global population. So if America had as much as other countries, it would have 4.2% of wealth. How much do we actually have? I'm afraid to hear the number. 30.8%. 30.8%. Yes. So, and also if you look at all the other statistics in that report, the number 30.8% 30.8%.

Yes. So, and also if you look at all the other statistics in that report, like the number of ultra wealth, what, what, uh, financial people call ultra wealth, ultra wealthy people and the number of billionaires, all that money, the most of the money really in the world is in the U S I mean, I, yes, it's true. China is growing. You have billionaires in all countries. Yeah. And that means that if you get, if you get, if somehow, and this is really the big

question, how, if we were able to get this change in the U S and the other countries can follow, but I think if we can't, yeah. So I think really, and yet, but this is probably the hardest place to make it happen because this is where we've got all the rich people and they have all the power and they're running the country, right? Yeah. And so then, so this is really the press question like how to change this.

And this is now where the, where the, uh, uh, it's almost so, uh, sad that you, that we have to start making jokes about it, but I think the only solution really is democracy. But then we're talking about American democracy, right? Right, yeah, which is its own. In the election year. Oh my God. So, but I just think the only solution really is for to have a mass mobilization

and make people understand what's genuine in their interests and not what they should just believe that politicians are saying. And the problem also, of course, which scholars have documented in detail is that the more you could say leftist leaders, say the Democrats in the US or labor in the UK or social democratic parties in continental Europe,

they have all really also adopted that neoliberal strategy. They have let ordinary people down. And that means of course that now we have a crisis of democracy. So we are in a very, very bad situation. So thank goodness we have comedians who make us laugh once in a while so that we can keep going. Yeah, gallows humor is what this show specializes in

as we're on our way to the death of democracy. When you describe this position as libertarianism, do you think it's compatible at all with capitalism as an economic system or is this a form of socialism? Do you think it's compatible at all with capitalism as an economic system or is it, you know, is this a form of socialism? We don't need to get too deep into the classification of these things, but I'm curious if you,

if you think it's, if it's compatible with capitalism at all. Yeah, so if the economic system that we had after the world war, so this mixed system of, of having, I mean, so I think what people would generally label social democracy, if social democracy is seen as a form of capitalism, which I would say it is a form of capitalism, but a kind of a good form of capitalism, then the answer is yes.

A better form. Yeah. Yeah. But the thing is that I know we can get stuck into definitions, but if of course, the ultimate thing of capitalism is unconstrained profit seeking, then the answer is no. I mean, I think profit is, I mean, so the, the defenders of capitalism will say that profit is a force for goods.

Yeah. Because it will make sure that I, as an entrepreneur will deliver something that meets the needs of another person. And I do it is because I seek a profit and they get their, their desires or their needs met. So that's the magic. Um, but that's the magic of markets. And I think, um, so the question is just, can we have this system where we are satisfied with, uh, decent profits, good profits,

but not boundless profits. If the answer is yes, then we can have capitalism. If the answer is no, then I don't know what we're gonna have. So some people think we're gonna have the pitchforks. I want you to address someone like Jeff Bezos directly to end the episode, because if I'm imagining, I'm gonna put myself in his position, right?

And what I think he actually believes. Um, and I think what he believes is yes, I have amassed great wealth. I have done so by creating more wealth for everybody else. I created this gigantic company. I grew it. I grew it. So many people have made so much money from, you know, the people who sell products on my platform to the guys who drive the trucks,

even the warehouse workers, oh, they weren't doing, that part of the country, they didn't have that many good jobs and we've given them jobs and they've made some money where they couldn't make some before. And the reason I have so much

is because I have been an engine for so many other people getting so much as well. And so if you stop people like me from existing, everybody will in fact be poorer. I think that's what they genuinely believe because everyone believes they're a good person and everyone has a justification for why that's the case. And so if you could sit him down,

what would you tell him about why he is wrong about that and what would in fact be better? Yeah, so I'm serious when I say, if people like Jeff Bezos want to have a chat with me, they can Google me and call me. And I talk with everybody. But what I would say to him, if I were to meet him, is that no money, no wealth is created by,

can be created by a person that by themselves. So I mean, I have in the book, this example of take somebody like Jeff Bezos and some of his friends and put them to an island where, which has enough to survive. And let's see how rich they can become. They cannot become rich. That means all wealth, individual wealth is because of collaborations within society. And that means, so that if he says, I create these jobs for all these people and I produce all these services, the question about distribution cannot be avoided. You always have to ask, okay, we produce this together.

So how much do I take and how much do I give to the workers, to the, all the people in the supply chain, and that's where it goes wrong. So he basically is giving them as little as he can to still be able to run his company and that's really, and that is, uh, and if you then look at what he gives them, also the working conditions, I think it just meets the definition of exploitation. And it's actually interesting that when his former wife, uh, Mackenzie Scott, when, when they divorced and she got, I think, one fourth, one quarter of his Amazon shares, she wrote this letter on Medium where she said something

like she announced that she was going to give away all our money. And then she said, I do not doubt that the wealth that is in the hands of individuals is actually being created by forces that provide countless opportunities for some and our obstacles to others. And I just think we should stop thinking about, okay, what did I, as an individual contribute, create, and we should see it as what, what do we create together? We, it's almost impossible to do something without others. And if you do something with others,

the question of how to divide up what you create together, hence the distributive question is just unavoidable. If you do not ask it, it is because you are in a power position to dictate to the others what you take and what they will get. That is a wonderful answer that, you know, it's a flip to look at, oh,

I've given these people so many jobs. How about all those people with those jobs created all of the wealth and you are taking an outsized portion of it. And in fact, if you did not take so much, they would be even wealthier. Absolutely. Is the question to ask.

Well, I love that you're putting those ideas out there. And I know that I love that you said, how can we make them happen? And we have to think about it. It seems like an obviously very long road, but never doubt the capacity of a book to change the world, right? You know, Carl's Mark, Karl Marx did it. Adam Smith did it. Right.

And there it is. Yeah. Hold it up one more time for us. So we can see. Actually, I should say something. So we can see. I should say something. So here's the book I wrote. I should say something about the, about the, the length that ideas can take. So the, the people who have, have influenced the thinkers who've influenced the current, our current ideology.

So that's Freddy von Hayek and Milton Friedman and others. They wrote their books in the, they started to write their books in the 40s. They seized power around 1980. So we, we are in there for the long run. This is not going to be something that we're going to implement tomorrow. We have to start changing the ideology because if you change, you can't change policies without changing the way people see themselves, see society. So I think in this sequence of change, the first thing that needs to change is the ideas.

And that's where we are now. And I'm not alone. There are many people who are writing books, producing movies, and that's where we need to do the hard work and just not give up. Well, thank you so much for being on the show. You were absolutely wonderful to talk to. I couldn't have loved it more. People should pick up a copy of the book. It's called Limitarianism.

You can pick up a copy at our special bookshop, factuallypod.com slash books. Where else can people find it and where can they follow your working grid? I would say if you want to buy a book, go to your local bookshop and they can order it for you. And if you, I mean, yeah, people can, I have a unique name, my surname and my first name Ingrid Robbins. There's only one person in the world.

So if you Google me, you can find out what I, what I do and what I write. So, and really thanks for having me on the show. It was a great conversation. You've been so wonderful, Ingrid. Thank you so much. Thank you. Well, thank you once again to Ingrid Robbins for coming on the show.

If you loved that conversation as much as I did, pick up a copy of her book at factuallypod.com slash books. And a reminder, when you do so, you'll be supporting not just this show, but your local bookstore as well. If you want to support this show directly, you can do so on Patreon. $5 a month gives you every episode of this show ad-free. For $15 a month, I will read your name at the end of the podcast,

and thank you in the credits of every single one of my video monologues. I got some more of those coming out for you soon. This week, I want to thank Robert Irish, Chris Parker, Millennial Glacier, DPC is Awesome, Philip Hanawalt, and John McPeak. Thank you so much for supporting the show. Very thrilled to have you. Head to patreon.com slash Adam Conover if you would like to join them.

I'd like to thank our producers, Tony Wilson and Sam Roudman, everybody here at HeadGum for making the show possible. You can find my standup comedy tour dates at adamconover.net. Would love to see you out on the road. Thank you so much for listening and we'll see you next time on Factually.