You're listening to Comedy Central. Welcome to the show. It's great to be here. A few months ago, for many people, your name did not exist in their minds at all in any way, and now you are a superstar, especially for many young people, because of your views in and around tax and the super wealthy around the world. How did you come to this from? From from what you do? Because you're you're a historian. Yeah, in fact, you are a Dutch historian. I'm a Dutch historian. That's how everyone refers to the Dutch historian. I think, you know, I'm really part of a much wider movement, you know, a whole new generation that things that we need to move on to two new ideas and basically that realized that we need a massive transformation of our economy, sir. And I was just in a place at the World Economic Forum where usually no, not many people get to go there, and it's just one of the few people there talking common sense. We we actually have a clip um that went viral if if we can play that right now, almost no raise is the real issue of tax avoidance, right and of the rich just not paying their fair share. I mean it feels like I met a firefighters fighters conference, and no one is allowed to speak about water. This is not rocket science. I mean, we can talk for a very long time about all these stupid philanthropy schemes. We can divide bono once more, but come on, it's we gotta be talking about Texas. Yeah, that's it, Texas, Texas, Texas. All the rest is bullshit in my opinion. So this was to give people context. This was you sitting with the richest people in the world. Yeah, and you were you were. You were actually supposed to be there to talk about just like the other aspects of your book, like universal basics from et cetera. And you surprised everyone with that. They were not happy. They didn't really like that. Now I was. I mean, I was supposed to go there and promote my book talk about universal basic income, which has become a really popular idea. But you know, during the conference, I became more and more uncomfortable because you can talk about all sorts of issues there, feminism, participation, equality, t but then no one raises the T word, right, you're not. People don't really talk about taxes and text appointed. So I I just went to my hotel room and prepared this short speech, and I got the question from from the moderator and basically ignored his question in that went ahead. Since that, since that little moment in Doubles, have you noticed a few private jets following you now? Have you? Because it seems like something that that would push a lot of really really wealthy people off that that idea of them paying more tax and then avoiding it. Why do you think that's more important or should be like one of the main conversations apart from transparency and equality and philanthropy. Well, you know, I'm atorian, right, So um, if I see someone like say President Trump talk about we should make America great again, he wants to go back to the fifties or something like that, I'm like, yeah, well, maybe that that's a good idea because in the fifties we have much higher tax rates for the rich. In fact, a billionaire like Trump would pay like nine percent marginal tax rate. Yes, the estate tax was over seventy for people like Trump. So yeah, I mean, make America great again, bring back those higher tax rates. That would be my slogan. Do you there are there are many people who would argue against you and say it's you. Yeah, I mean you you say you want to raise taxes on on the wealthy, but the wealthy already paying their fair share of taxes. People are paying almost fifty of what they own. Isn't that fair? How do you respond to them? You know, this is whole boring debate in this country about you know, capitalism versus socialism. Um. From my perspective, it sounds a bit ridiculous, Like we're talking about ideas like medicare for all. Seventy percent of all Americans is in favor of that, higher taxes on their is in favor of that. So it's utterly mainstream, and I know that sort of the standard response here is always, oh, it sounds like communism, that sounds like venezuela. But it's not communism. It's common sense. It's it's what most people support. Let me let me ask you this. One of one of the things I know get that gets thrown at me all the time as people go, oh, you you raise the taxes, and everyone's going to leave because I mean, you know, if you if you raise the taxes for the rich, and then the rich you're gonna go live in countries where they don't have to pay as much tax and you've lost all of those incomes, and you've lost all of those people in your country. Well, America is the most powerful country in the world. You know, it can easily crack down on tax paradisees like Holland, where I'm from, right where one of the main tex paradises for American corporate corporations. So you know, that's really a matter of political will, I guess, just them being willing to say, hey, we're going to tax you no matter where you go, no matter what you do. It's interesting that you you you fight for these ideas. When you come from Europe, people would say to you, but but r you you come from a country where things are great. You do have all of these services, people are not struggling as much as they are in other parts of the world. Why is this so important to you? Then? Well, I mean the American debate is incredibly influential back in Holland, right So, uh, And we've got rising inequality in Europe as well, and the welfare state that is under pressure. But I mean, it's also true that if I look at a debate right around Medicare for all, for example, America is the only country in the rich world that doesn't have it, and still it has the most expensive health care system and life expectancy is going down. So yeah, that seems pretty ridiculous. You have a bunch of ideas that many people would consider ridiculous depending on their age, and I find a lot of young people genuinely love as genius. Um Utopia for Realists is the book that you wrote, and it's come back into prominence again because you you it's just like a fun read. You talk about all of these ideas and how they could actually be implemented, which is interesting, not just the ideas universal basic income, open borders, fifteen hour work week. Really just I mean, this is like a book. This is like Freddy Krueger for a GOP person, this is this is like nightmare stories, That's what this is. Indeed, they just a picture of Rupert Murdock reading I actually did I just see that? We have that picture Rupert Murdoch, Like, how do you feel about that? There is there is one of the people you're speaking about. I framed it. Obviously. It's like when you talk about these issues like universal basic income, for instance, seems like a crazy idea. You're just want to pay people to not work, then why would anyone work? Well, what not many people know actually is that if you go back to the sixties, almost everyone believed, all the experts believe that some form of basic income was going to be implemented in the United States. And it was actually Richard Nixon, of all people, who had a bill for a modest basic income that got through the House of Representatives twice and was only killed in the Senate by Democrats, not because they didn't like the idea of completely eradicated eradicating poverty, but because they wanted to hire basic income. So it's a it's a pretty bizarre history that I you know, describe in the book. Another another bizarre thing is that actually there were major trials with basic income in the US BacT. Then, you know, thousands of families received a basic income just to test what would happen. It turns out it was really effective, you know, how care calls went down, crime went down, kids did much better in school. But then there was one problematic finding is that they also found that the divorce rates went up, you know, quite a lot, because a lot of women were like, okay, I'm going to leave that that asshole and um. But then, but then all the conservatives obviously said, okay, we don't want basic inclan anymore. This is gonna make women much too independent. Right. It was only ten years later that they found out that they had made a statistical mistake, so in reality, the divorce rate did not go up. It's a pretty bizarre history of Well, let me let me ask you this, then, as as a historian who is basing your arguments on things that have actually happened, doesn't frustrate you when you see politicians like Trump, um, I guess misstating their plans based on a history that they don't seem to understand themselves. Because, like you said, Trump says, we're going to do it the way it was, but then when you propose the way it was, he's like, no, I I don't like that. Do you think that as people in general, we just don't know enough about our histories. Well, what frustrates me the most are these people, the so called moderates, the centrist who say, oh, that's never gonna happen. You know that is too radical. If you zoom out a little bit, you see that so many times in history. Utpian fantasies have become reality. Um So, I think that's important to keep in mind. You know that the democracy was once a crazy idea, right, the end of slavery was once a total fantasy. It all happened, but it never starts in the center. It always happened starts on the fringes with people are first. This missed as radical, as crazy, as as lunatics. Right, So I guess we've gotta be a bit unreasonable. Sometimes you have to be unreasonable to move the conversation forward. The fifteen hour work week is probably my favorite part of your book. How how does that even begin to work? Yeah, well, it goes back to a very old idea actually of the the economist John Maynard Keynes. He wrote this essay in ninety that, you know, sort of make two predictions. The first prediction was, we're gonna be a lot sharing the future, right if we don't make stupid mistakes like starting other world war or hysterity during times of crisis. What we did that? But anyway, we'll be a lot richer. And then we'll use that wealth to work a little bit less each year. And then he just extrapolated a set we'll have a fifteen hour work week in two thousand thirty. The fascinating thing, again from the historical perspective, is that up until the seventies, you know, we were on track to make it, you know, the work week wash shrinking and shrinking and shrinking, and the experts were predicting that the biggest challenge of the future was going to be bored. It's only around nineteen eighty that, you know, throughout the developed what we've been starting to working more and more and we've been keeping on inventing these jobs that don't really need to exist, right, So people sitting in offices, sending sending emails all day to people they don't really like, and writing reports so on, no one's ever going to read, right, So that's what they academic term his bullshit jobs. Yes, yeah, yeah, it's just like basically you just sit there and then you're just like, to whom it may concern, reply, I all has put my last email, etcetera, etcetera. That's the half of my day. But then the fascinating, the fascinating thing is is that most of these these jobs, you know, are people who have wonderful resumes, you know, with two great universities and have wonderful job titles. But then still at the end of the day this and they're like, you know what, I could go on strike and no one would notice. Um. So in the book, I've got this story of two strikes that happened in in in the sixties. The first strike was of garbage collectors. New York lost it for six days. State of emergency had to be declared. It turns out we can't do without garbage collectors. So at that point, I wondered, has it ever happened in history that the bankers might not strike? So I started looking, you know, looked at the past five thousand years basically since the invention of money, and I found only one example, and this was in Ireland. The bankers were angry that their wages were not keeping up with inflation. So that you know what, you'll have it, We're gonna go on strike and then you'll just how important we are. And all the experts were like, oh, this is going to be a disaster, is going to be a heart attack for the economy. And then from one day so the other day of the money supply was not accessible anymore, and nothing much happened. Actually, sir, the strike classes for six months in the end, and after six months the bankers came back and said, all right, all right, all right, we'll get back to work. And I think this is another example where history just makes you rethink, right, who are the real wealth creators? Like this in this country? Is does wealth really you know, is it really created at the top and then does it trickle down or maybe it's the other way around. And are the teachers and the garbage collectors in the nurses are they the real wealth creators? Wow, that's powerful, man. Um. Let me ask you this as a historian. If we don't take these concepts seriously, if we don't think about how we protect workers and not the jobs themselves, if we don't think about how to get people paying the Fisher of Texas, how we uh stop people avoiding text, which is a huge issue. What do you then worry would happen based on history? Well, what I worry about the most is that about the moment when people just don't have hope anymore for for a better future. Right. So, my frustration a couple of years ago when I started writing this book was that I saw so many people, you know, young people or people call themselves progressives who only knew what they were against, right against austerity, against racism, against homophobia, against all these things. Yes I'm against them as well, but you also have to know what you're actually for. And that's why I'm so excited that you see this whole movement now of indeed younger people who come up with all these fascinating new ideas, sometimes old ideas, sometimes new ideas like the Green New Deal. Um, that's what excites me the most because we need hope. Wow, thank you for being on the show. Man, really great having you on. You talk for Realist as a really fascinating read. It's available now Rocket Bragman, Everybody. The Daily Show with Trevor no Ears. Additional subscribe to The Daily Show on YouTube for exclusive content and stream full episodes anytime on Paramount Plus. This has been a Comedy Central podcast

You're listening to Comedy Central. Welcome to the show. It's great to be here. A few months ago, for many people, your name did not exist in their minds at all in any way, and now you are a superstar, especially for many young people, because of your views in and around tax and the super wealthy around the world. How did you come to this from? From from what you do? Because you're you're a historian. Yeah, in fact, you are a Dutch historian. I'm a Dutch historian. That's how everyone refers to the Dutch historian. I think, you know, I'm really part of a much wider movement, you know, a whole new generation that things that we need to move on to two new ideas and basically that realized that we need a massive transformation of our economy, sir. And I was just in a place at the World Economic Forum where usually no, not many people get to go there, and it's just one of the few people there talking common sense. We we actually have a clip um that went viral if if we can play that right now, almost no raise is the real issue of tax avoidance, right and of the rich just not paying their fair share. I mean it feels like I met a firefighters fighters conference, and no one is allowed to speak about water. This is not rocket science. I mean, we can talk for a very long time about all these stupid philanthropy schemes. We can divide bono once more, but come on, it's we gotta be talking about Texas. Yeah, that's it, Texas, Texas, Texas. All the rest is bullshit in my opinion. So this was to give people context. This was you sitting with the richest people in the world. Yeah, and you were you were. You were actually supposed to be there to talk about just like the other aspects of your book, like universal basics from et cetera. And you surprised everyone with that. They were not happy. They didn't really like that. Now I was. I mean, I was supposed to go there and promote my book talk about universal basic income, which has become a really popular idea. But you know, during the conference, I became more and more uncomfortable because you can talk about all sorts of issues there, feminism, participation, equality, t but then no one raises the T word, right, you're not. People don't really talk about taxes and text appointed. So I I just went to my hotel room and prepared this short speech, and I got the question from from the moderator and basically ignored his question in that went ahead. Since that, since that little moment in Doubles, have you noticed a few private jets following you now? Have you? Because it seems like something that that would push a lot of really really wealthy people off that that idea of them paying more tax and then avoiding it. Why do you think that's more important or should be like one of the main conversations apart from transparency and equality and philanthropy. Well, you know, I'm atorian, right, So um, if I see someone like say President Trump talk about we should make America great again, he wants to go back to the fifties or something like that, I'm like, yeah, well, maybe that that's a good idea because in the fifties we have much higher tax rates for the rich. In fact, a billionaire like Trump would pay like nine percent marginal tax rate. Yes, the estate tax was over seventy for people like Trump. So yeah, I mean, make America great again, bring back those higher tax rates. That would be my slogan. Do you there are there are many people who would argue against you and say it's you. Yeah, I mean you you say you want to raise taxes on on the wealthy, but the wealthy already paying their fair share of taxes. People are paying almost fifty of what they own. Isn't that fair? How do you respond to them? You know, this is whole boring debate in this country about you know, capitalism versus socialism. Um. From my perspective, it sounds a bit ridiculous, Like we're talking about ideas like medicare for all. Seventy percent of all Americans is in favor of that, higher taxes on their is in favor of that. So it's utterly mainstream, and I know that sort of the standard response here is always, oh, it sounds like communism, that sounds like venezuela. But it's not communism. It's common sense. It's it's what most people support. Let me let me ask you this. One of one of the things I know get that gets thrown at me all the time as people go, oh, you you raise the taxes, and everyone's going to leave because I mean, you know, if you if you raise the taxes for the rich, and then the rich you're gonna go live in countries where they don't have to pay as much tax and you've lost all of those incomes, and you've lost all of those people in your country. Well, America is the most powerful country in the world. You know, it can easily crack down on tax paradisees like Holland, where I'm from, right where one of the main tex paradises for American corporate corporations. So you know, that's really a matter of political will, I guess, just them being willing to say, hey, we're going to tax you no matter where you go, no matter what you do. It's interesting that you you you fight for these ideas. When you come from Europe, people would say to you, but but r you you come from a country where things are great. You do have all of these services, people are not struggling as much as they are in other parts of the world. Why is this so important to you? Then? Well, I mean the American debate is incredibly influential back in Holland, right So, uh, And we've got rising inequality in Europe as well, and the welfare state that is under pressure. But I mean, it's also true that if I look at a debate right around Medicare for all, for example, America is the only country in the rich world that doesn't have it, and still it has the most expensive health care system and life expectancy is going down. So yeah, that seems pretty ridiculous. You have a bunch of ideas that many people would consider ridiculous depending on their age, and I find a lot of young people genuinely love as genius. Um Utopia for Realists is the book that you wrote, and it's come back into prominence again because you you it's just like a fun read. You talk about all of these ideas and how they could actually be implemented, which is interesting, not just the ideas universal basic income, open borders, fifteen hour work week. Really just I mean, this is like a book. This is like Freddy Krueger for a GOP person, this is this is like nightmare stories, That's what this is. Indeed, they just a picture of Rupert Murdock reading I actually did I just see that? We have that picture Rupert Murdoch, Like, how do you feel about that? There is there is one of the people you're speaking about. I framed it. Obviously. It's like when you talk about these issues like universal basic income, for instance, seems like a crazy idea. You're just want to pay people to not work, then why would anyone work? Well, what not many people know actually is that if you go back to the sixties, almost everyone believed, all the experts believe that some form of basic income was going to be implemented in the United States. And it was actually Richard Nixon, of all people, who had a bill for a modest basic income that got through the House of Representatives twice and was only killed in the Senate by Democrats, not because they didn't like the idea of completely eradicated eradicating poverty, but because they wanted to hire basic income. So it's a it's a pretty bizarre history that I you know, describe in the book. Another another bizarre thing is that actually there were major trials with basic income in the US BacT. Then, you know, thousands of families received a basic income just to test what would happen. It turns out it was really effective, you know, how care calls went down, crime went down, kids did much better in school. But then there was one problematic finding is that they also found that the divorce rates went up, you know, quite a lot, because a lot of women were like, okay, I'm going to leave that that asshole and um. But then, but then all the conservatives obviously said, okay, we don't want basic inclan anymore. This is gonna make women much too independent. Right. It was only ten years later that they found out that they had made a statistical mistake, so in reality, the divorce rate did not go up. It's a pretty bizarre history of Well, let me let me ask you this, then, as as a historian who is basing your arguments on things that have actually happened, doesn't frustrate you when you see politicians like Trump, um, I guess misstating their plans based on a history that they don't seem to understand themselves. Because, like you said, Trump says, we're going to do it the way it was, but then when you propose the way it was, he's like, no, I I don't like that. Do you think that as people in general, we just don't know enough about our histories. Well, what frustrates me the most are these people, the so called moderates, the centrist who say, oh, that's never gonna happen. You know that is too radical. If you zoom out a little bit, you see that so many times in history. Utpian fantasies have become reality. Um So, I think that's important to keep in mind. You know that the democracy was once a crazy idea, right, the end of slavery was once a total fantasy. It all happened, but it never starts in the center. It always happened starts on the fringes with people are first. This missed as radical, as crazy, as as lunatics. Right, So I guess we've gotta be a bit unreasonable. Sometimes you have to be unreasonable to move the conversation forward. The fifteen hour work week is probably my favorite part of your book. How how does that even begin to work? Yeah, well, it goes back to a very old idea actually of the the economist John Maynard Keynes. He wrote this essay in ninety that, you know, sort of make two predictions. The first prediction was, we're gonna be a lot sharing the future, right if we don't make stupid mistakes like starting other world war or hysterity during times of crisis. What we did that? But anyway, we'll be a lot richer. And then we'll use that wealth to work a little bit less each year. And then he just extrapolated a set we'll have a fifteen hour work week in two thousand thirty. The fascinating thing, again from the historical perspective, is that up until the seventies, you know, we were on track to make it, you know, the work week wash shrinking and shrinking and shrinking, and the experts were predicting that the biggest challenge of the future was going to be bored. It's only around nineteen eighty that, you know, throughout the developed what we've been starting to working more and more and we've been keeping on inventing these jobs that don't really need to exist, right, So people sitting in offices, sending sending emails all day to people they don't really like, and writing reports so on, no one's ever going to read, right, So that's what they academic term his bullshit jobs. Yes, yeah, yeah, it's just like basically you just sit there and then you're just like, to whom it may concern, reply, I all has put my last email, etcetera, etcetera. That's the half of my day. But then the fascinating, the fascinating thing is is that most of these these jobs, you know, are people who have wonderful resumes, you know, with two great universities and have wonderful job titles. But then still at the end of the day this and they're like, you know what, I could go on strike and no one would notice. Um. So in the book, I've got this story of two strikes that happened in in in the sixties. The first strike was of garbage collectors. New York lost it for six days. State of emergency had to be declared. It turns out we can't do without garbage collectors. So at that point, I wondered, has it ever happened in history that the bankers might not strike? So I started looking, you know, looked at the past five thousand years basically since the invention of money, and I found only one example, and this was in Ireland. The bankers were angry that their wages were not keeping up with inflation. So that you know what, you'll have it, We're gonna go on strike and then you'll just how important we are. And all the experts were like, oh, this is going to be a disaster, is going to be a heart attack for the economy. And then from one day so the other day of the money supply was not accessible anymore, and nothing much happened. Actually, sir, the strike classes for six months in the end, and after six months the bankers came back and said, all right, all right, all right, we'll get back to work. And I think this is another example where history just makes you rethink, right, who are the real wealth creators? Like this in this country? Is does wealth really you know, is it really created at the top and then does it trickle down or maybe it's the other way around. And are the teachers and the garbage collectors in the nurses are they the real wealth creators? Wow, that's powerful, man. Um. Let me ask you this as a historian. If we don't take these concepts seriously, if we don't think about how we protect workers and not the jobs themselves, if we don't think about how to get people paying the Fisher of Texas, how we uh stop people avoiding text, which is a huge issue. What do you then worry would happen based on history? Well, what I worry about the most is that about the moment when people just don't have hope anymore for for a better future. Right. So, my frustration a couple of years ago when I started writing this book was that I saw so many people, you know, young people or people call themselves progressives who only knew what they were against, right against austerity, against racism, against homophobia, against all these things. Yes I'm against them as well, but you also have to know what you're actually for. And that's why I'm so excited that you see this whole movement now of indeed younger people who come up with all these fascinating new ideas, sometimes old ideas, sometimes new ideas like the Green New Deal. Um, that's what excites me the most because we need hope. Wow, thank you for being on the show. Man, really great having you on. You talk for Realist as a really fascinating read. It's available now Rocket Bragman, Everybody. The Daily Show with Trevor no Ears. Additional subscribe to The Daily Show on YouTube for exclusive content and stream full episodes anytime on Paramount Plus. This has been a Comedy Central podcast