Matt Taibbi: Does The Rise Of Socialism Risk The End Of Western Civilization?

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**Matt Taibbi** (0:59)
There were so many amazing insights that came with the enlightenment and the way that those ideas were deployed, primarily in the American situation, but also through the French Revolution and other developments. But we came up with this system of government that had some extraordinary concepts that had never really been tried out on a grand scale before. One was this idea that the people were in charge of themselves, that they had a right to overthrow their governments if the government was not acting legitimately, and even putting that on paper.
The way we crafted our understanding of speech, and this is why speech is such a big topic now, is because there is such a profound difference in how we look at speech and how everybody else looks at it. What's so strange about a lot of the sort of modern thinking is that, yeah, why throw out the baby with the bathwater? Yes, let's improve things. Let's make it so that there's more opportunity, that there's less inequality, all these things. You can achieve those things without getting rid of freedom of speech or due process or any of those things. So we have to stand up for the fact that we made something incredible. Well, maybe not we, but they made something incredible. We're the stewards of it. And I personally would feel great shame if it were to vanish on our watch, right? Like that would be such a failure of our generation. And I hope that's not the case.

**Adam Taggart** (2:54)
Welcome to Thoughtful Money. I'm its founder and your host, Adam Taggart. Today, we're gonna start with our usual financial fare, but then branch out into other important topics impacting society today, like the state of free speech, media bias, and the role of government. I'm taking the license to do so because of our good fortune to be joined today by Matt Taibbi, one of the few remaining truly great independent journalists, a rare breed these days. Many of you know Matt from his work at Rolling Stone, where among other great scoops, he chronicled the unfolding of the global financial crisis, as well as the abuses that caused it, in a plain language manner that the general public could finally understand. Or you may know him from his pioneering work on the Twitter files, exposing the government-driven censorship and narrative planting that had metastasized across the social media ecosystem during the Covid era. Or you may know him from his ongoing work on Substack at his Racket News channel, or from the many books he's authored. We're very lucky to have him join us today. Matt, it's wonderful to see you.

**Matt Taibbi** (3:53)
Thanks for having me, Adam. Wow, that's a very kind introduction.

**Adam Taggart** (3:56)
Well, I appreciate that, but it's just all facts. Anyways, kudos to you for a very illustrious career. I want to start by asking you about the financial side of things, which I don't know, Matt, I'm not sure that's the majority of your coverage anymore. I think you're more on freedom and media bias and role of government and all that stuff. But if you don't mind, I'd like to start with your perspective as one of the great chroniclers of the global financial crisis.
The question I have for you is based on what you're seeing now if you're still looking at the financial system at all from your purge. Did we learn anything constructive from the excesses and abuses that led to the GFC? Has the integrity of our financial system improved or worsened since?

**Matt Taibbi** (4:48)
I don't think we learned anything terribly constructive. There was maybe a little bit of specific learning in terms of specifically home mortgages maybe, but you can still see the same kind of bubble like activity going on. There are a range of new financial products that simulate a lot of the same problems that we had with mortgages.