For almost six centuries Europe has been at the centre of world affairs.

While the days of Empire are long gone, over the last several decades the importance and comparative wealth of Europe has declined at an extraordinary pace. Indeed for many countries, from Britain to Germany and Greece, living standards have stagnated or even declined.

Now, in what seem like the final months of the war in Ukraine, Europe can no longer rely on security guarantees made by the United States. Technologically dependent on a superpower across the Atlantic, the countries of Europe are economically, militarily and politically weaker than at any time in centuries. All while China ascends to the category of superpower, and Russia returns to the politics of expansionism.

So how bad are things for Europe? Has its entire political class just been discredited? If so, what will be the consequences? Could Russia target other states, like Lithuania or Estonia, if it succeeds in annexing large parts of Ukraine? Is there a model Europe can pursue beyond vassalage to Washington? And how might it relate to China in an increasingly multipolar world?

Downstream: Europe's Political Elite Are Completely Finished w/ Philip Pilkington

In 1996 Samuel Huntington published ‘The Clash of Civilizations’. At the time its hypothesis was counter-intuitive. Despite the supremacy of the United States after the Cold War, the ascent of globalisation would not lead to the end of history, but a return to distinctive and competing civilisations. Rather than homogeneity we would see a growing emphasis on difference, rather than unhindered free markets we would see friction, and eventually rupture.

In 2025, with the continued rise of China to superpower status and a revanchist Russia, it’s tempting to think Huntington was right. Rather than a global civilisation – based on market competition and the rule of law – we are edging towards a world of multipolarity and civilisation-states. But what if civilisational thinking is itself mistaken? What if the idea of plural ‘civilisations’ is a product of the 19th century? Where does such civilisational thinking really come from? What even is a ‘civilisation’? And what, in particular, is ‘the West’?

Josephine Quinn is one of Britain’s most respected historians of antiquity. Chair of Ancient History at Cambridge, her most recent book, “How the World Made the West”, was a book of the year for The Economist, The Sunday Times and The Guardian. In this conversation Josephine and Aaron go from the very dawn of ancient European history, through the Bronze Age Collapse, to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. How similar were those people to us? And what lessons does the distant past hold for the challenges of the 21st century?

Downstream: Everything We’re Told About the History of the West Is Wrong w/ Josephine Quinn

When we talk about politics – whether it’s the climate, the economy or constitutional reform – the thing that’s at stake is an idea of ‘the future’. These days, the idea of imminent societal or ecological breakdown necessarily means adopting the framing of the present as being a ‘state of emergency’. This is an obvious way for political actors to attempt to generate consensus – but does this ostensibly well-intentioned way of viewing the future actually narrow political discourse in favour of far-right and authoritarian politicians?

To discuss this, Aaron is joined by Jonathan White, Deputy Head of the European Institute and Professor in Politics at the LSE and author of In the Long Run: The Future as a Political Idea.

Downstream: Why Don’t We Have Any Hope? w/ Jonathan White

In 2024 the Conservative party suffered their worst defeat in two centuries. But while Labour struggles in office, the Tories are going nowhere fast. Meanwhile Britain shambles on without an economic model, or a wider vision for the future. How long can national decline continue? And when will things come to a head?

Aaron Bastani speaks to author, and Mail on Sunday columnist, Peter Hitchens. They discuss – from different perspectives – a country in crisis, the legacy of Thatcherism, and the elite obsession with Britain remaining ‘important’. If only they gave up such illusions, Hitchens argues, then they could focus on the country’s happiness and prosperity.

Downstream: This Much We Agree On: Britain Is In Decline w/ Peter Hitchens

As smart phone use has soared, Generation Z’s mental health has plummeted. But just how bad is this crisis, and who should we hold responsible?

In The Anxious Generation, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt sets out his comprehensive diagnosis of the problems caused by the mass integration of smartphones into every aspect of most children’s lives.

In conversation with Aaron Bastani, Haidt takes square aim at Meta, Snapchat, and TikTok, the three companies he believes are wrecking childhood. They discuss whether targeting young girls with beauty adverts counts as abuse, and what it’s like going for dinner at the Zuckerbergs’. Haidt tells the story of how we are sleepwalking into this crisis, and shares his ideas for how to break out of it, before the damage is too great.

Downstream: Big Tech Is Making Our Children Depressed and Anxious. Here’s How w/ Jonathan Haidt

This week’s guest is best known for hijacking a panel at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting at Davos, where he told a room full of billionaires to stop avoiding taxes. He now claims that this form of protest has been proven ineffective in the struggle for progress. The last 25 years have seen some of the biggest protests in history, yet we’ve seen wars erupt and inequality widen.

With his new book, ‘Moral Ambition’, Rutger Bregman lays out a history of how societal change actually happens, and how we can learn from the agentic groups of thoughtful individuals who improved our civilisation.

In conversation with Aaron Bastani he discusses the true origins of abolitionism, what the left gets wrong about Elon Musk and why we might actually see the end of history.

Downstream: How to Be a Morally Effective Person w/ Rutger Bregman

Dale Vince is a former new age traveller. In 1985 he was beaten up by police and arrested during the infamous Battle of the Beanfield at Stonehenge.

And he's also the inventor a string of transformative technologies: the world’s first green energy company, the electric supercar, and the Electric Highway charging network. The last of these got him into in a David-versus-Goliath legal battle with Elon Musk – a battle Vince won.

Since then, he's funded Just Stop Oil, become a major donor to the Labour Party, and owns Forest Green Rovers, the world’s first vegan football club.

His next project? Creating an edible form of high protein-grass.

He spoke to Aaron Bastani about how the new age traveller movement prefigured the world today and whether he'd ever buy a Tesla.

Downstream: Britain’s Most Powerful Multi-Millionaire Hippy w/ Dale Vince

During the 2008 economic crisis, the Obama administration had an opportunity to enact widespread market reforms. Instead, they bailed out the banks and laid the groundwork for mass inequality and a political culture that has given us a second Trump administration.

This week’s guest was in the room where those crucial decisions were made, and argued that financial institutions should not be able to escape the consequences of their recklessness.

Joseph Stiglitz is a Nobel Prize-winning economist and author of ‘The Road To Freedom: Economics and The Good Society’.

He sat down with Aaron to discuss the collapse of American democracy, his relationship with Milton Friedman and whether China is actually a socialist country.

Downstream: American Democracy Is Collapsing, and This Man Predicted It. w/ Joseph Stiglitz

Michael Lewis is an American author, journalist, and former bond trader. His best-known book, The Big Short, explains the 2000s US housing bubble and helped many people understand the 2008 financial crisis. In this interview, Lewis speaks with Aaron Bastani about his latest book, a collection of essays on federal government employees.

Lewis finds that many of these workers are actually doing a good job, far from the stereotype of inefficient bureaucrats and the ire the likes of Trump and Musk direct at them. Why is Trump so effective at capturing public anger? Could Trumpism continue without Trump? What is Obama’s true political legacy? And what is the next major crisis?

Downstream: Trump & Musk Could Start a Global Meltdown w/ Michael Lewis

Economist, and former finance minister of Greece, Yanis Varoufakis joins Aaron to discuss his most recent book Raise Your Soul: A Personal History of Resistance, a memoir about the women in Yanis’ family who raised him, and gave him his political conscience.

They discuss the Hegelian Master-Slave dialectic, is patriarchy harmful to the perpetrators, as well as women? Did Tony Blair do more to privatise Britain than Margaret Thatcher? Does Keir Starmer have a plan?

And how does fascism end up destroying not just those it deems to be its enemies, but the motherland as well?

Sign up for the upcoming Downstream Newsletter here: https://novaramedia.com/newsletters/the-downstream-newsletter/ 

Get tickets for the next Downstream IRL, ‘Gaza: The Story of a Genocide’ (with Aaron Bastani) at EartH Hackney on Mon 13 Oct at 6:30 pm:  https://link.dice.fm/N3e5f1cbd3ee

00:00  Intro
02:27 Five women who inspired Yanis’ political life
09:34 The Greeks In Egypt
22:02 The Asia Minor Catastrophe
29:30 Fascism always wrecks the motherland
36:43 The root cause of fascism is capitalism
39:44 Was America ever great?
45:19 Why Yanis doesn’t take Steve Bannon’s call
50:16 Communism can save the climate
1:00:18 The problems with Starmer
1:05:25 “Tony Blair is as evil as they come”
1:09:09 The road from Thatcher to Reform
1:13:36 Feminism, the manosphere, and the master slave paradox
1:23:44 On pornography
1:32:52 Humans Need Rules to live by
1:34:34 Physics or economics?
1:42:48 Collective will
1:48:14 Coming back from a bad year

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