No Logo

And to me, when I look at it, I go, well, this is the, the, the fundamental premise of capitalism, is that you exit from the material to become the investor, or you exit from the investment to become the platform owner, or, uh, you know, that you keep going meta on reality in order to escape its, its, its problems.

It's so interesting because I actually, at a certain point, I think I said to Astra that I feel like I have been writing about this my entire life, like, in terms of, like, even my first book, you know, writing 30 years ago, No Logo, right? Was, you know, I used to say that it was a project of corporate transcendence.

They didn't want-- They wanted to transcend the world of things, of stuff, and be a pure brand, right? Like, that was the dream of the weightless, pure lifestyle brand.

Don't own your factories.

My guest this week is Naomi Klein, who stopped by the studio to discuss the book she wrote with Astra Taylor that I just mentioned, End Times Fascism and the Fight for the Living World.

Naomi is an award-winning journalist and the best-selling author of No Logo, The Shock Doctrine, and Doppelganger, which she first came on the show to discuss a few years ago.

In this conversation, I wanted to go deeper on the argument she and Astra are making in their new book, what they mean by end-times fascism, why they see connections between the religious right, the tech elite, and nationalist movements around the world, and where that framework gets more complicated.

especially when it comes to the very human instinct to protect our own.

Also, Naomi Klein has a book called End Times Fascism.

She's a co-author of and a huge fan of Naomi Klein, going back to No Logo and the Shock Doctrine, where... a magical conjuring trick has been played oh yeah AI it's gonna be great it's gonna be great it's gonna be great you haven't got a job anymore

yeah

oh and there's no more welfare because in fact the people who are developing this don't believe in welfare so you you just die sorry

We had some technical difficulties and we're back with two of my favorite people, thinkers, people of great insight about what is happening in the world, Astrid Taylor and Naomi Klein.

And Naomi, let me just ask you, about this great book that you and Astra have written, End Times Fascism and the Fight for the Living World.

Can you just give a sense of what is End Times Fascism?

So it is a fascism that is responding to planetary scale crises, a feeling of imminent collapse that is not all in their imagination.

So this is an evolution of fascism for our times of planetary scale crises or devolution, if you will.

Devolution, maybe more accurate.

Astra, one thing I love about your book, the book that you two, both of you wrote, and I love the collaboration, but one thing I also love about it is that you are connecting so many dots in terms of techno-nationalism, in terms of so many of the things that we are seeing the religious right do, and also the kind of nativist Right.

Maybe you could tell us a little bit more using, for example, somebody you talk about a lot in the book, Elon Musk.

In the process, Klein, who also writes a column for The Guardian, and holds a professorship at the University of British Columbia, has become one of the best known and most influential public intellectuals of the left, combining reporting from communities living with the consequences of political and economic decisions with ambitious and often provocative arguments about the forces shaping their lives and ours.

In Klein's newest book, her 10th, End Times Fascism and the Fight for the Living World, which she co-authored with the writer and organizer Astra Taylor, she brings together those concerns in a stark diagnosis of our present moment.

Klein and Taylor argue that an alliance of technology billionaires, religious messianists, and authoritarian nationalists is preparing for a future defined by catastrophe In fact, accelerating us towards that catastrophe while promising escape or protection for a chosen few.

From artificial intelligence and private enclaves to fortified borders and apocalyptic faith, they trace a politics of abandonment, then propose an alternative grounded in solidarity, democratic power, and a commitment to the world we share.

We wanted to have Klein on the show not only because we find her work intriguing and always provocative, as I said before, but also because we knew End Times fascism would be a big deal.

And indeed, it is rocketing to the top of the New York Times bestseller list, or at least up to number two immediately upon publication.

We wanted to get into the questions that the book raises.

exploring what makes the arguments that she and Taylor offer persuasive, where it may reach a little too far, and what it would mean to act on those arguments, along with what distinguishes today's concentration of wealth and power from the forces that Klein has been describing for the past decades, what the pursuit of profit has done, and its intensity to an authoritarian project that has gone far further than a lot of people ever thought they would see in the United States under Donald Trump, and how a politics built around belonging and affordability and shared survival might become powerful enough to challenge it.

Tonight, I'm excited to welcome Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor, celebrating the release of their new book, In Time's Fascism and the Fight for the Living World, a scathing investigation into the apocalyptic thinking of the Christian nationalists, techno-bro reactionaries, and populist survivalists who increasingly define the contemporary right and a recipe on how to fight them.

Naomi Klein is an award-winning journalist and documentary filmmaker, and the best-selling author of iconic titles such as Dappelganger, No Logo, The Shock Doctrine, and other classic books, which have been translated into 35 languages.

She's an associate professor of geography and co-director of the Center for Climate Justice at the University of British Columbia, and writes a regular column for The Guardian.

Astra Taylor is an award-winning writer, activist, and documentarian, and the co-founder of the Debt Collective.