9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Democracy.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
In the West, we make a colossal mistake[br]taking it for granted.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
We see democracy not as the most fragile[br]of flowers that it really is,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
but we see it as part[br]of our society's furniture.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
We tend to think of it[br]as any transient given.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
We mistakenly believe that capitalism[br]begets, inevitably, democracy --

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
it doesn't.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew and his[br]great imitators in Beijing

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
have demonstrated[br]beyond reasonable doubt

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that it is perfectly possible to have[br]flourishing capitalism,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
spectacular growth,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
while politics remain democracy free.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Indeed, democracy is receding[br]in our neck of the woods,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
here in Europe.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Earlier this year while I was[br]representing Greece,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the newly elected Greek government[br]in the Eurogroup as its Fincance Minister,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I was told to know on certain terms,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that our nation's democratic[br]process, our elections,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
could not be allowed to interfere

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
with economic policies that were being[br]implemented in Greece.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
At that moment,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I felt that there could be no greater[br]vindication of Lee Kuan Yew,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
or the Chinese Communist Party,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
indeed of some recalcitrant[br]friends of mine who kept telling me

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that democracy would be banned[br]if it ever threatened to change anything.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Tonight, here, I want to present to you

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
an economic case[br]for an authentic democracy.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I want to ask you to join me[br]in believing, again,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that Lee Kuan Yew,[br]The Chinese Communist Party,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and indeed the Eurogroup,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
are wrong in believing that we[br]can dispense with democracy.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
That we need an authentic,[br]boisterous democracy,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and without democracy,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
our societies will be nastier,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
our future bleak,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and our great technologies wasted.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Speaking of waste,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
allow me to point out[br]an interesting paradox

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that is threatening our[br]economies as we speak.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I call it the twin peaks paradox.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
One peak you understand --

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
you know it, you recognize it --

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
is the mountain of debts

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that has been casting a shadow[br]over the United States,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Europe,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the whole world.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
We all recognize the mountain of debts.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
But few people discern its twin.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
A mountain of idle cash belonging to rich[br]savers and to corporations,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
too terrified to invest it

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
into the productive activities[br]that can generate the incomes

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
from which you can extinguish[br]the mountain of debts

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and which can produce all those things[br]that humanity desperately needs,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
like green energy.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Now let me give you two numbers.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Over the last three months,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
in the United States, in Britain[br]and the Euro zone,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
we have invested collectively,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
3.4 trillion dollars on all[br]the wealth-producing goods,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
things like industrial plants, machinery,[br]office blocks, schools, roads, railways,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
machinery, and so on and so forth ...

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
3.4 trillion sounds like a lot of money

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
until you compare it to the 5.1 trillion

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that has been slushing around in the same[br]countries, in our financial institutions,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
doing absolutely nothing[br]during the same period ...

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
except inflating stock exchanges[br]and driving up house prices.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So a mountain of debt[br]and a mountain of idle cash

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
form twin peaks failing[br]to cancel each other out

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
through the normal[br]operation of the markets.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
The result is stagnant wages,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
more than a quarter[br]of 25 to 54-year-olds --

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
in America, in Japan and in Europe --

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
out of work,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and consequently,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
low aggregate demand,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
which in a never-ending cycle,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
reinforces the pessimism of the investors,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
who fearing low demand,[br]reproduce it by not investing.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Exactly like Oedipus' father,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
who terrified by[br]the prophecy of the oracle

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that his son would grow up to kill him,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
unwittingly engineered the conditions

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that insured that Oedipus,[br]his son, would kill him.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
This is my quarrel with capitalism.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
It's gross wastefulness,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
all this idle cash,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
should be energized to improve lives,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
to develop human talents,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and indeed to finance[br]all these technologies --

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
green technologies --

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
which are absolutely essential[br]for saving planet Earth.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Am I right in believing[br]that democracy might be the answer?

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I believe so, but before we move on,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
what do we mean by democracy?

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Aristotle defined democracy[br]as the constitution

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
in which the free and the poor,[br]being in the majority, control government.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Now of course Athenian democracy[br]excluded too many --

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
women, migrants and of course, the slaves.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
But it would be a mistake[br]to dismiss the significance

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
of ancient athenian democracy

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
on the basis of whom it excluded.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
What is more pertinent,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and continues to be so about ancient[br]athenian democracy,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
was the inclusion of the working poor,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
who not only acquired[br]the right to free speech,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
but more importantly --

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
crucially --

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
they acquired the rights[br]to political judgements

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that were afforded equal weight

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
in the decision-making[br]concerning matters of state.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Now of course, Athenian[br]democracy didn't last long,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
like a candle that burns brightly,[br]it burned out quickly.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And indeed, our liberal democracies today,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
do not have their roots in ancient Athens.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
They have their roots in the Magna Carta,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
in the 1688 Glorious Revolution,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
indeed in the American constitution.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Whereas Athenian democracy was focusing[br]on the masterless citizen

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and empowering the working poor,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
our liberal democracies,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
founded on the Magna Carta tradition,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
which was, after all a charter for masters.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And indeed liberal democracy[br]only surfaced when it was possible

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
to separate fully the political sphere[br]from the economic sphere,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
so as to confine the democratic process[br]fully in the political sphere,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
leaving the economic sphere --

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the corporate world, if you want --

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
as a democracy-free zone.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Now in our democracies today,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
this separation of the economic[br]from the political sphere,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the moment it started happening,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
it gave rise to an inexorable,[br]epic struggle between the two

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
with the economic sphere[br]colonizing the political sphere,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
eating into its power.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Have you wondered why politicians[br]are not what they used to be?

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
It's not because their DNA[br]has degenerated --

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
(Laugher)

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
It is rather because one can be[br]in government today and not in power.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Because power has migrated

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
from the political to the economic[br]sphere, which is separate.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Indeed --

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I spoke about my[br]quarrel with capitalism --

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
If you think about it,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
it is a little bit like[br]a population of predators,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that are so successful in decimating[br]the prey that they must feed on,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that in the end, they starve.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Similarly, the economic sphere

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
has been colonizing and cannibalizing[br]the political sphere to such an extent

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that is is undermining itself,[br]causing economic crises.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Corporate power is increasing,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
political goods are devaluing,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
inequality is rising,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
aggregate amount is falling,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and CEO's of corporations are too scared[br]to invest the cash of their corporations.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So the more capitalism succeeds in taking[br]the demos out of democracy,