WEBVTT

00:00:01.573 --> 00:00:03.196
Democracy.

00:00:03.196 --> 00:00:04.671
In the West,

00:00:04.671 --> 00:00:08.431
we make a colossal mistake
taking it for granted.

00:00:08.431 --> 00:00:09.853
We see democracy

00:00:09.853 --> 00:00:14.263
not as the most fragile
of flowers that it really is,

00:00:14.263 --> 00:00:17.756
but we see it as part
of our society's furniture.

00:00:18.251 --> 00:00:22.430
We tend to think of it
as any transient given.

00:00:22.988 --> 00:00:28.282
We mistakenly believe that capitalism
begets inevitably, democracy.

00:00:28.282 --> 00:00:29.513
It doesn't.

00:00:29.513 --> 00:00:33.887
Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew
and his great imitators in Beijing

00:00:33.887 --> 00:00:36.882
have demonstrated
beyond reasonable doubt

00:00:36.882 --> 00:00:40.783
that it is perfectly possible
to have flourishing capitalism,

00:00:40.783 --> 00:00:43.205
spectacular growth,

00:00:43.205 --> 00:00:46.407
while politics remain democracy free.

00:00:46.407 --> 00:00:50.689
Indeed, democracy is receding
in our neck of the woods.

00:00:50.689 --> 00:00:52.225
Here in Europe.

00:00:52.225 --> 00:00:55.611
Earlier this year while I was
representing Greece --

00:00:55.611 --> 00:00:58.394
the newly elected Greek government --


00:00:58.394 --> 00:01:01.244
in the Eurogroup as its Finance Minister,

00:01:01.244 --> 00:01:06.174
I was told in certain terms
that our nation's democratic process --

00:01:06.174 --> 00:01:07.726
our elections --

00:01:07.726 --> 00:01:09.538
could not be allowed to interfere

00:01:09.538 --> 00:01:13.196
with economic policies that were being
implemented in Greece.

00:01:13.196 --> 00:01:14.318
At that moment,

00:01:14.318 --> 00:01:18.891
I felt that there could be no greater
vindication of Lee Kuan Yew,

00:01:18.891 --> 00:01:20.617
of the Chinese Communist Party,

00:01:20.617 --> 00:01:24.256
indeed of some recalcitrant
friends of mine who kept telling me

00:01:24.256 --> 00:01:28.925
that democracy would be banned
if it ever threatened to change anything.

00:01:29.969 --> 00:01:33.045
Tonight, here, I want to present to you

00:01:33.045 --> 00:01:36.388
an economic case
for an authentic democracy.

00:01:36.782 --> 00:01:41.649
I want to ask you to join me
in believing again

00:01:41.649 --> 00:01:44.800
that Lee Kuan Yew ...

00:01:44.800 --> 00:01:46.175
the Chinese Communist Party,

00:01:46.175 --> 00:01:47.592
and indeed the Eurogroup,

00:01:47.592 --> 00:01:51.122
are wrong in believing that we
can dispense with democracy.

00:01:51.893 --> 00:01:55.445
That we need an authentic,
boisterous democracy,

00:01:55.445 --> 00:01:58.613
and without democracy,

00:01:58.613 --> 00:02:01.488
our societies will be nastier,

00:02:01.488 --> 00:02:03.615
our future bleak,

00:02:03.615 --> 00:02:06.441
and our great, new technologies wasted.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Speaking of waste,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
allow me to point out
an interesting paradox

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that is threatening our
economies as we speak.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I call it the twin peaks paradox.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
One peak you understand --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
you know it, you recognize it --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
is the mountain of debts

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that has been casting a shadow
over the United States,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Europe,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the whole world.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We all recognize the mountain of debts.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But few people discern its twin.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
A mountain of idle cash belonging to rich
savers and to corporations,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
too terrified to invest it

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
into the productive activities
that can generate the incomes

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
from which you can extinguish
the mountain of debts

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and which can produce all those things
that humanity desperately needs,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
like green energy.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Now let me give you two numbers.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Over the last three months,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in the United States, in Britain
and the Euro zone,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
we have invested collectively,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
3.4 trillion dollars on all
the wealth-producing goods,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
things like industrial plants, machinery,
office blocks, schools, roads, railways,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
machinery, and so on and so forth ...

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
3.4 trillion sounds like a lot of money

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
until you compare it to the 5.1 trillion

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that has been slushing around in the same
countries, in our financial institutions,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
doing absolutely nothing
during the same period ...

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
except inflating stock exchanges
and driving up house prices.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So a mountain of debt
and a mountain of idle cash

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
form twin peaks failing
to cancel each other out

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
through the normal
operation of the markets.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The result is stagnant wages,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
more than a quarter
of 25 to 54-year-olds --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in America, in Japan and in Europe --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
out of work,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and consequently,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
low aggregate demand,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
which in a never-ending cycle,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
reinforces the pessimism of the investors,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
who fearing low demand,
reproduce it by not investing.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Exactly like Oedipus' father,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
who terrified by
the prophecy of the oracle

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that his son would grow up to kill him,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
unwittingly engineered the conditions

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that insured that Oedipus,
his son, would kill him.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
This is my quarrel with capitalism.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It's gross wastefulness,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
all this idle cash,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
should be energized to improve lives,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to develop human talents,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and indeed to finance
all these technologies --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
green technologies --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
which are absolutely essential
for saving planet Earth.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Am I right in believing
that democracy might be the answer?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I believe so, but before we move on,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
what do we mean by democracy?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Aristotle defined democracy
as the constitution

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in which the free and the poor,
being in the majority, control government.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Now of course Athenian democracy
excluded too many --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
women, migrants and of course, the slaves.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But it would be a mistake
to dismiss the significance

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
of ancient athenian democracy

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
on the basis of whom it excluded.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
What is more pertinent,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and continues to be so about ancient
athenian democracy,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
was the inclusion of the working poor,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
who not only acquired
the right to free speech,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but more importantly --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
crucially --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
they acquired the rights
to political judgements

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that were afforded equal weight

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in the decision-making
concerning matters of state.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Now of course, Athenian
democracy didn't last long,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
like a candle that burns brightly,
it burned out quickly.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And indeed, our liberal democracies today,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
do not have their roots in ancient Athens.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
They have their roots in the Magna Carta,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in the 1688 Glorious Revolution,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
indeed in the American constitution.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Whereas Athenian democracy was focusing
on the masterless citizen

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and empowering the working poor,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
our liberal democracies,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
founded on the Magna Carta tradition,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
which was, after all
a charter for masters.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And indeed liberal democracy
only surfaced when it was possible

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to separate fully the political sphere
from the economic sphere,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
so as to confine the democratic process
fully in the political sphere,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
leaving the economic sphere --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the corporate world, if you want --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
as a democracy-free zone.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Now in our democracies today,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
this separation of the economic
from the political sphere,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the moment it started happening,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
it gave rise to an inexorable,
epic struggle between the two

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
with the economic sphere
colonizing the political sphere,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
eating into its power.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Have you wondered why politicians
are not what they used to be?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It's not because their DNA
has degenerated --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
(Laugher)

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It is rather because one can be
in government today and not in power.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Because power has migrated

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
from the political to the economic
sphere, which is separate.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Indeed --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I spoke about my
quarrel with capitalism --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
If you think about it,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
it is a little bit like
a population of predators,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that are so successful in decimating
the prey that they must feed on,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that in the end, they starve.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Similarly, the economic sphere

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
has been colonizing and cannibalizing
the political sphere to such an extent

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that is is undermining itself,
causing economic crises.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Corporate power is increasing,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
political goods are devaluing,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
inequality is rising,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
aggregate amount is falling,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and CEO's of corporations are too scared
to invest the cash of their corporations.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So the more capitalism succeeds in taking
the demos out of democracy,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the taller the twin peaks

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and the greater the waste
of human resources,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and humanity's wealth.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Clearly, if this is right,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
we must reunite the political
and economic sheres

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and better do it with demos
being in control,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
like ancient Athens except
without the slaves,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
or the exclusion of women
and migrants.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Now this is not an original idea,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the marxist left had
that idea 100 years ago

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and it didn't go very well, did it?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The lesson that we learned
from the Soviet debacle

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
is that only by a miracle will the working
poor be re-empowered,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
as they were in ancient Athens,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
without creating new forms
of brutality and waste.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But there is a solution.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Eliminate the working poor.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Capitalism's doing it

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
by replacing low-wage workers
with automata, androids, robots.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The problem is

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that as long as the economic and
the political spheres are separate,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
automation makes the twin peaks taller,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the waste loftier,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and the social conflicts deeper,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
including --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
soon, I believe --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in places like China.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So we need to reconfigure,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
we need to reunite the economic
and the political spheres,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but we better do it by democratizing
the reunified sphere,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
lest you end up with
a surveillance-mad, hyper-autocracy

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that makes The Matrix, the movie,
look like a documentary.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
(Laughter)

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So the question is not whether
capitalism will survive

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the technological innovations
of this moment.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The more interesting question is whether
capitalism will be succeeded

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
by something resembling a Matrix dystopia,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
or something much closer
to a Star Trek-like society,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
where machines serve the humans

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and the humans expend their energies
exploring the universe

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and indulging in long debates
about the meaning of life

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in some ancient, Athenian-like,
high tech Agora

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I think we can afford to be optimistic.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But what would it take --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
what would it look like --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to have this Star Trek-like utopia,
instead of the Matrix-like dystopia?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
In practical terms,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
allow me to share, just briefly,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
a couple of examples.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
At the level of the Enterprise,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
imagine a capital market,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
where you earn capital as you work,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and where your capital follows you
from one job to another,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
from one company to another,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and the company --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
whichever one you happen
to work at at that time --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
is solely owned by those who happen
to work in it at that moment.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Then, all income stems
from capital, from profits,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and the very concept
of wage labor becomes obsolete.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
No more separation between those
who own but do not work in the company,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and those who work
but do not own the company.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
No more tug-of-war
between capital and labor.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
No great gap between
investment and saving,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Indeed, no towering twin peaks.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
At the level of a global
political economy,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
imagine for a moment,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that our national currencies
have a free-floating exchange rate,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
with a universal, global,
digital currency,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
one that is issued by
the International Monetary Fund,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the G-20,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
on behalf of all humanity.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And imagine further,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that all international trade
is denominated in this currency --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
let's call it "the cosmos" --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in units of cosmos.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
With every government agreeing
to be paying into a common fund

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
a sum of cosmos units proportional
to the country's trade deficit,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
or indeed to a country's trade surplus.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And imaging that that fund is utilized
to invest in green technologies,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
especially in parts of the world
where investment funding is scarce.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
This is not a new idea.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It's what, effectively,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
John Maynard Keynes proposed
in 1944 at the Bretton Woods Conference.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The problem is that back then

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
they didn't have the technology
to implement it.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Now we do.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Especially in the context of a reunified
political economic sphere.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The world that I am describing to you

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
is simultaneously libertarian,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in that it prioritizes
empowered individuals,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Marxist,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
since it will have confined
through the [dustbin?] of history

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the division between capital and labor,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and Keynesian --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
global Keynesian.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But above all else,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
it is a world in which

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
we will be able to imagine
an authentic democracy.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Will such a world dawn?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Or shall we descend
into a Matrix-like dystopia?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The answer lies in the political choice
that we shall be making collectively.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It is our choice,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and we'd better make it democratically.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Thank you.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
(Applause)

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Bruno Giussani: Yanis ...

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It was you who described yourself
in your bios as a libertarian marxist --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
what is the [relevance of Marxism] today?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
YV: Well if there was any relevance
in what I just said, the Marx is relevant

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
because the whole point of reunifying
the political and economic is --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
if we don't do it,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
then technological innovation will create
such a massive fall in aggregate --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
what Larry Summers referers
to as secular stagnation.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
With this crisis migrating
from one part of the world,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
as it is now,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
we destabilize not only our democracies,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but even the [emerging?] world that is not
that keen on liberal democracy.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So if this analysis holds water,
then Marx is absolutely relevant.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But so is [Hagen?] --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that's why I'm a libertarian marxist,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and so is Keynes,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
so that's why I'm totally confused.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
(Laughter)

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
BG: Indeed, and possibly we are, too now.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
(Applause)

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
YV: If you are not confused,
you are not thinking, okay?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
BG: That's a very, very Greek
philosopher kind of thing to say --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
YV: That's more Einstein, actually --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
BG: During your talk you mentioned
Singapore and China,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and yesterday night at the speaker dinner,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
you expressed a pretty strong opinion
about how the West looks at China.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Would you like to share that?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
YV: Well there's a great
degree of hypocrisy.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
In our liberal democracies we have
a semblance of democracy.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It's because we have confined --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
as I was saying in my talk --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
democracy to the political sphere,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
while leaving the one sphere
where all the action is --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the economic sphere --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
a completely democracy-free zone.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
In a sense,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
if I am allowed to be provocative,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
China today is closer to Britain
in the 19th century,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
because remember,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
we tend to associate
liberalism with democracy --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that's a mistake, historically.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Liberalism --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Liberal --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
it's like John Stuart Mill.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
John Stuart Mill was particularly
skeptical about the democratic process.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So what you are seeing now in China
is a very similar process

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to what we had in Britain
during the Industrial Revolution,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
especially the transition
from the first to the second.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And to be castigating China

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
for doing that which the West did
in the 19th century,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
smacks of hypocrisy.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
BG: I am sure that many people here

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
are wondering about your experience

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
as the Finance Minister of Greece
earlier this year --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
YV: I knew this was coming --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
BG: Yes --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
(Laughter)

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
BG: Six months after,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
how do you look back
at the first half of the year?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
YV: Extremely exciting
from a personal point of view

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and very disappointing,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
because we had an opportunity
to reboot the Eurozone.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Not just Greece, the Eurozone.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
To move away from the complacency


99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and the constant denial
that there was a massive --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and there is a massive --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
architectural fault line
going through the Eurozone,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
which is threatening, massively,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the whole of the European Union process.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We had the opportunity
on the basis of the Greek program --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
which by the way,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
was the first program
to manifest that denial --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to put it right.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And unfortunately,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the powers that be in Eurozone --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in the Eurogroup --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
chose to maintain denial.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But you know what happens.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
This is the experience
of the Soviet Union.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
When you try to keep alive

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
an economic system
that architecturally cannot survive,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
through political will
and through authoritarianism,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
you may succeed in prolonging it.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But when change happens

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
it happens very abruptly
and catastrophically.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
BG: What kind of change
are you foreseeing?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
YV: Well there's no doubt

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that if we don't change
the architecture of the Eurozone,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the Eurozone has no future.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
BG: [Did you do any mistakes] 
when you were Finance Minister?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
YV: Every day.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
(Laughter)

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Anybody who looks back --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
(Applause)

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
No but seriously.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
If there's any Minister of Finance --


99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
or of anything else for that matter --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
who tells you after six months in a job,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
especially in such a stressful situation,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that they had made no mistake,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
[they're dangerous people],

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
of course I made mistakes.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The greatest mistake

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
was to sign the application
for the extension of a loan agreement

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in the end of February.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I was imagining

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that there was a genuine interest
on the side of the creditors

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to find common ground.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And there wasn't.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
They were simply interested
in crushing our government,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
just because they did not want
to have to deal

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
with the architectural fault lines
that were running through the Eurozone,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and because they didn't want to admit

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that for five years they were implementing
a catastrophic problem in Greece.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We lost one-third of our Nominal GDP.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
This is worse than the Great Depression.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And no one has come clean

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
from the tribe of lenders
that have been imposing this policy

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to say, "this was a colossal mistake."

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
BG: Despite all this,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and despite the aggressiveness
of the discussion though,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
you seem to remaining
quite pro-European.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
YV: Absolutely.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Look, my criticism of the European
Union and the Eurozone

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
comes from a person
who lives and breathes Europe.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
My greatest fear is that
the Eurozone will not survive.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Because if it doesn't,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the centrifugal forces
that would be unleashed

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
would be [demonic],

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and they would destroy the European Union.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And that would be catastrophic
not just for Europe

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but for the whole global economy.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We are probably the largest
economy in the world.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And if we allow ourselves

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to fall into a [route?]
of the post-modern 1930's,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
which seems to me what we are doing,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
then that will be detrimental

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to the future of Europeans
and non-Europeans alike.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
BG: We definitely hope
you are wrong on that point.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Yanis, thank you for coming to TED.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
YV: Thank you

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
(Applause)