1 00:00:00,970 --> 00:00:11,170 Hello and welcome to the book launch of this extraordinary book, Rescue From Global Crisis to a Better World by Ian Goldin. 2 00:00:11,170 --> 00:00:20,440 This is a remarkable book, not least because of the speed at which it was written, but the depth, the breadth that there is in every single page. 3 00:00:20,440 --> 00:00:26,050 As he writes, it is the most intense book I have ever written. 4 00:00:26,050 --> 00:00:30,820 Now we're over the next hour, we're going to explore what Ian has said. 5 00:00:30,820 --> 00:00:36,940 His analysis of where we are and also where we're going are the options for where we are going. 6 00:00:36,940 --> 00:00:41,980 I can imagine almost all of you know in well, but I'm going to just underscore that. 7 00:00:41,980 --> 00:00:47,140 Ian is professor of globalisation and development at the University of Oxford. 8 00:00:47,140 --> 00:00:54,220 He leads the Oxford Martin programme on the future of work, technological and economic change and the future of development. 9 00:00:54,220 --> 00:00:57,250 Prior to becoming the founding director of the Martin School, 10 00:00:57,250 --> 00:01:03,580 he was vice president of the World Bank and he was chief executive of the Development Bank of Southern Africa, 11 00:01:03,580 --> 00:01:08,690 as well as working for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. 12 00:01:08,690 --> 00:01:19,510 So in remarkable. But you bring all of this to your book, and just before Ian gets going to summarise what is his analysis is, 13 00:01:19,510 --> 00:01:23,080 but also to give you an idea of where we could be going. 14 00:01:23,080 --> 00:01:30,250 Is it austerity or is it something which government has to support and the changes that we need for thinking? 15 00:01:30,250 --> 00:01:38,620 Let me underscore that we'd love to hear from you, so please start asking questions, post them in the bottom right hand corner, then ask a question. 16 00:01:38,620 --> 00:01:42,020 Let me just tell you, why am I going doing this? 17 00:01:42,020 --> 00:01:48,820 William kindly invited me, partly because of the seven years of work that I've been doing on thinking the unthinkable. 18 00:01:48,820 --> 00:01:57,160 And Ian is now taking that to the next stage, so I'm delighted to be here to pose some questions to him to exchange thoughts with him as well. 19 00:01:57,160 --> 00:02:03,310 In about 20 minutes, but in This Is For You now the most intense book you've ever written. 20 00:02:03,310 --> 00:02:07,990 But making it clear that there must be a step change, as you put it in direction, 21 00:02:07,990 --> 00:02:14,950 not as you put it, incremental shuffle shuffles that lead us over another precipice. 22 00:02:14,950 --> 00:02:21,550 The floor is yours. Get the questions coming in. Thank you so much, Nick, and thank you for agreeing to do this, 23 00:02:21,550 --> 00:02:31,290 I can't think of someone who's better placed having been the anchor for BBC World News and then forming this thinking the unthinkable, 24 00:02:31,290 --> 00:02:37,020 which is really doing what I am also trying to do and thank you to everyone that's joined from around the world. 25 00:02:37,020 --> 00:02:42,210 I have seen in the chats people from all over, some I know, most I don't. 26 00:02:42,210 --> 00:02:48,000 But it's a delight that you are part of this and I hope what you find in this, our inspiration. 27 00:02:48,000 --> 00:02:52,980 I know people around the world are going through a terribly tough time at present. 28 00:02:52,980 --> 00:03:00,810 And the reason I wrote the book was because I believe that the terrible suffering that so many are enduring the deaths, 29 00:03:00,810 --> 00:03:09,600 the losses, the sickness and the disruption to lives, as well as the unemployment and growing inequality should not be in vain. 30 00:03:09,600 --> 00:03:13,530 My hope is that this can lead to a better world. 31 00:03:13,530 --> 00:03:23,480 The book is optimistic because it makes the argument that despite all this terrible suffering good could come of this terrible pandemic. 32 00:03:23,480 --> 00:03:33,410 And that really depends on our ability to seise this moment, ensure that this is the pandemic to end all pandemics. 33 00:03:33,410 --> 00:03:42,830 This is the pandemic that leads us to do things differently in the future, to overcome inequality, to accelerate our actions on climate change, 34 00:03:42,830 --> 00:03:54,160 to work more effectively together and to recognise what's important in our personal lives and around the world to recalibrate, to think afresh. 35 00:03:54,160 --> 00:04:07,030 I worry a lot about terms that are used, like bouncing back, even bouncing forward worries me because it implies we going on down the same track. 36 00:04:07,030 --> 00:04:16,840 It's this road which leads over a cliff. It's this road which will lead to future pandemics to escalating climate change, 37 00:04:16,840 --> 00:04:22,930 growing inequality, increasing tensions within our societies and between them. 38 00:04:22,930 --> 00:04:27,670 It is not a world that we want to inhabit or our children do. 39 00:04:27,670 --> 00:04:37,750 Even the term a reset worries me because reset implies we go back to the operating system that was pre. 40 00:04:37,750 --> 00:04:43,570 Set in the system, like when we reset our computers, we go back to the factory defaults. 41 00:04:43,570 --> 00:04:46,810 What we need is something very different now. 42 00:04:46,810 --> 00:04:50,700 Radical change is a scary concept. 43 00:04:50,700 --> 00:05:02,790 We all worry about being taken out of the familiar out of our comfort zones and radical has for many negative connotations, warring connotations. 44 00:05:02,790 --> 00:05:09,630 But what I argue in the book is that business as usual is far more worrying. 45 00:05:09,630 --> 00:05:14,580 It's far more destabilising. It would lead to much greater risk and uncertainty. 46 00:05:14,580 --> 00:05:23,100 Our lives would be far worse off in the future if we went back to the old normal to the business as usual. 47 00:05:23,100 --> 00:05:31,680 If this roaring 20s, which we are likely to see as our pent up need to party and to have a good time and spend the money we've saved in lockdown, 48 00:05:31,680 --> 00:05:37,940 if we still haven't, we haven't been made. Unemployment leads to a roaring 20s. 49 00:05:37,940 --> 00:05:48,530 But we should never forget what the previous Roaring Twenties led to after the First World War that was meant to be the war to end all wars. 50 00:05:48,530 --> 00:05:53,250 H.G. Wells wrote that the leaders at the time felt that. 51 00:05:53,250 --> 00:05:58,800 And when people were celebrating in the 20s after not only the war, but the Spanish flu, 52 00:05:58,800 --> 00:06:04,330 which was a global pandemic that killed perhaps a third of the world's population. 53 00:06:04,330 --> 00:06:14,430 They thought they were heading to a better world. Of course, what history teaches us is they were racing over a cliff. 54 00:06:14,430 --> 00:06:21,060 The Great Depression, rising inequality, mass joblessness. 55 00:06:21,060 --> 00:06:32,790 The rise of protectionism of fascism. And an even worse war that killed over the double the number of people that the First World War killed. 56 00:06:32,790 --> 00:06:43,470 But what's so remarkable to me about the experience of the Second World War and I write about this in the book, is that despite. 57 00:06:43,470 --> 00:06:47,200 The fact that bombs were dropping on Whitehall. 58 00:06:47,200 --> 00:06:55,840 But the leaders were distracted by having to fight on five fronts in the U.K., we were in danger of being invaded around Oxford. 59 00:06:55,840 --> 00:07:02,130 Even they'll block houses to repel Nazi invaders. Despite. 60 00:07:02,130 --> 00:07:07,710 That emergency, that short term crisis, existential crisis. 61 00:07:07,710 --> 00:07:15,180 The leaders were able to think long term to say this will be the war to end all wars to create. 62 00:07:15,180 --> 00:07:19,330 In 1942, in the midst of the war, the Beveridge report. 63 00:07:19,330 --> 00:07:27,070 Which established the welfare state to create the United Nations to ensure that nations would cooperate in the future. 64 00:07:27,070 --> 00:07:34,250 To create the Bretton Woods institutions to allow trade. And economic integration. 65 00:07:34,250 --> 00:07:37,760 With International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, 66 00:07:37,760 --> 00:07:46,710 the World Bank primarily established to help those that have been defeated Japan and Germany. 67 00:07:46,710 --> 00:07:54,500 In their reconstruction, I'm like in the first war with World War, where countries had to pay reparations. 68 00:07:54,500 --> 00:07:57,410 And, of course, the Marshall Plan, which led to three per cent, 69 00:07:57,410 --> 00:08:04,520 which is a very large number of US income being transferred to Europe to help in reconstruction and 70 00:08:04,520 --> 00:08:09,970 still the people that went off to sacrifice their lives and young people in the Second World War. 71 00:08:09,970 --> 00:08:17,200 Could look forward to a better world, a world of full employment, of free education, of a National Health Service, 72 00:08:17,200 --> 00:08:24,490 the GI Bill in the US, the welfare state in the UK and the establishment of a welfare state across Europe. 73 00:08:24,490 --> 00:08:30,690 It was a different world leading to this radical change. 74 00:08:30,690 --> 00:08:40,260 The golden age of capitalism, what history tells us was the golden age of capitalism from after the Second World War to the 1970s. 75 00:08:40,260 --> 00:08:46,370 In France, the taunt lawyers the 30 glorious years. 76 00:08:46,370 --> 00:08:53,330 Taxes with 70 percent sponsored by the US, pushed up by Roosevelt and then by subsequent presidents, 77 00:08:53,330 --> 00:08:57,380 conservative and Democrat, Republican and Democrats alike. 78 00:08:57,380 --> 00:09:04,550 And in the UK too, across the political spectrum, there was a support for a strong state. 79 00:09:04,550 --> 00:09:14,060 Indeed, there had to be because what the Conservatives learnt after Churchill was deposed six weeks after the end of the Second World War, 80 00:09:14,060 --> 00:09:22,090 the hero that had delivered the UK and the allies from certain defeat what was thought to be. 81 00:09:22,090 --> 00:09:30,090 Deposed by a virtually unknown claim aptly. Because he would not support this progressive agenda. 82 00:09:30,090 --> 00:09:35,790 So when we think about things as being radical today, a strong state redistribution, 83 00:09:35,790 --> 00:09:42,810 a focus on welfare, free education, health and other services, these things are not radical. 84 00:09:42,810 --> 00:09:47,590 These things have all been done before and they've been done by conservative governments. 85 00:09:47,590 --> 00:09:57,220 High taxes have been implemented by conservative governments in the U.K., in the U.S. and around the world. 86 00:09:57,220 --> 00:10:05,460 It is simply that over the last year since the Thatcher Reagan revolution, we've changed our focus. 87 00:10:05,460 --> 00:10:11,690 We've imagined. That these things are unsustainable and cannot be done. 88 00:10:11,690 --> 00:10:17,900 We've gone from societies that believe in we to societies that believe in me. 89 00:10:17,900 --> 00:10:20,310 We've gone from. 90 00:10:20,310 --> 00:10:33,800 The sense of us and community to a sense of individualism and as that primacy of the individual, which has been challenged so deeply by this pandemic. 91 00:10:33,800 --> 00:10:39,680 The pandemic has shifted everything in terms of our understandings. 92 00:10:39,680 --> 00:10:48,000 If the government had told us in January 2020 that it would tell us when to hug, I would have thought I lived in the Orwellian state. 93 00:10:48,000 --> 00:10:51,360 If the government had told us it would tell us when to fly or when to go to work, 94 00:10:51,360 --> 00:10:57,570 or any of the things it tells us now, we would think we were in the most authoritarian state in the world. 95 00:10:57,570 --> 00:11:03,110 I don't think even the North Korean government tells its citizens when they can hug. 96 00:11:03,110 --> 00:11:13,910 We accept behaviour change when we believe it's in the public interest, and we accept government's playing a role and now 10 to 20 percent of GDP. 97 00:11:13,910 --> 00:11:22,020 Budget deficits 16 trillion dollars something like a quarter of the U.S. 98 00:11:22,020 --> 00:11:29,690 Found of GDP found. For these new bills that Biden is proposing. 99 00:11:29,690 --> 00:11:34,850 We can recalibrate very quickly, and we need to we need to build on this. 100 00:11:34,850 --> 00:11:37,100 We had a pivotal moment. 101 00:11:37,100 --> 00:11:44,840 And what the Second World War experience teaches me, and also the failures of the First World War and other crises is that if we don't act now, 102 00:11:44,840 --> 00:11:53,720 while this is still fresh in our minds before we slip back into the complacency and familiarity of the old, if we don't act now, 103 00:11:53,720 --> 00:12:01,970 we're going to miss a once in a generation opportunity to change the world for the better to act differently. 104 00:12:01,970 --> 00:12:06,710 Now, the book goes through many dimensions of this inequality, 105 00:12:06,710 --> 00:12:14,910 the relationship between old and young and how the young have sacrificed their education, their social lives. 106 00:12:14,910 --> 00:12:19,920 Many of the job prospects and inherited a massive debt for the old. 107 00:12:19,920 --> 00:12:30,280 What we pay back to them, how we promised the in return for their sacrifice because their risk of dying from COVID is extremely low. 108 00:12:30,280 --> 00:12:35,140 They are taking a risk on our behalf and people my age and old as behalf. 109 00:12:35,140 --> 00:12:41,110 What are we going to give them back in terms of a promise of a better future, a cleaner world and more sustainable world, 110 00:12:41,110 --> 00:12:50,770 more equitable world, a world that isn't so riven by conflict, overcoming discrimination and of course, what the pandemic has done? 111 00:12:50,770 --> 00:13:02,440 And I outline this is it's exacerbated and revealed the inequalities not only between rich and poor and those that can work 112 00:13:02,440 --> 00:13:08,020 from home and those that counts and those governments that can afford to support their citizens and those that can't. 113 00:13:08,020 --> 00:13:12,730 Like most developing countries and especially in low income countries, 114 00:13:12,730 --> 00:13:19,900 but also within communities between women and men, massive widening of gender differentials between the young and old, 115 00:13:19,900 --> 00:13:29,950 which I've mentioned, we've seen the particularly adverse effects of the pandemic on black, Asian and minority ethnic groups. 116 00:13:29,950 --> 00:13:33,430 We've also seen the enormous sacrifice of essential workers. 117 00:13:33,430 --> 00:13:45,240 We clap for them, but we don't give them the reward, the puny reward in the UK of one percent in terms of a pay increase well below what they deserve. 118 00:13:45,240 --> 00:13:52,530 We need to think about how we translate these actions into substantial and permanent changes. 119 00:13:52,530 --> 00:14:01,740 The book focuses as well on the future of work, and this is a massive topic not only who can work remotely and where they will work remotely, 120 00:14:01,740 --> 00:14:07,870 but what the implications are for the future of cities and offices. 121 00:14:07,870 --> 00:14:16,550 The prospects for people most jobs, certainly my own, but I think virtually everyone's all in effect apprenticeships. 122 00:14:16,550 --> 00:14:22,730 We learn by observation. We learn through informal learning. 123 00:14:22,730 --> 00:14:36,770 Often we learn by challenging people and organisations, thrive and grow and transform over time and become stronger, whether they private or public. 124 00:14:36,770 --> 00:14:47,590 Through this constant challenge that newcomers bring in and the challenge of the young for the old newcomers and fresh ideas, the interdisciplinarity. 125 00:14:47,590 --> 00:14:55,000 And in that we have to ask ourselves is what's going to happen to innovation and change through remote? 126 00:14:55,000 --> 00:14:58,330 Can we be innovative? Can we be creative? 127 00:14:58,330 --> 00:15:04,720 And the two dimensions to this, the one is could we have Silicon Valley without Silicon Valley cafes and proximity to Stanford? 128 00:15:04,720 --> 00:15:08,500 And so what happens to the big innovation? There's also the creativity. 129 00:15:08,500 --> 00:15:17,530 We will get stimulus from each other, from listening to new things, from the arts, from what's often the sublime. 130 00:15:17,530 --> 00:15:27,490 And I talk about this and the remarkable experience I had listening to Tasmin Little Play Off Final Violin Concerto. 131 00:15:27,490 --> 00:15:36,010 There are many things which are so precious that we in danger of losing unless we protect them. 132 00:15:36,010 --> 00:15:46,510 And unless we really understand that the pandemic, through its automated processes, risks solidifying things which will not be for the better, 133 00:15:46,510 --> 00:15:53,740 whether it's in the arts, whether it's remoteness or whether it's in the city of bouncing back. 134 00:15:53,740 --> 00:16:00,490 Globalisation certainly is not dead, and by globalisation, I mean flows across national borders. 135 00:16:00,490 --> 00:16:05,930 We've seen, in fact, an acceleration of this in many dimensions, we've seen it in the vaccine production. 136 00:16:05,930 --> 00:16:14,920 Quite remarkable. Of course, those vaccine laboratories like the one up the road from the in Oxford people coming together in the same space. 137 00:16:14,920 --> 00:16:21,190 We've seen it now in the challenge that we have to overcome a vaccine nationalism. 138 00:16:21,190 --> 00:16:26,680 We've seen it in this conversation digitally, the explosion of digital conversations, 139 00:16:26,680 --> 00:16:33,870 and of course with it, the explosion of wealth that of those that own the means the technology giants. 140 00:16:33,870 --> 00:16:40,500 And we also seeing it in the record prices for containers on Asian routes. 141 00:16:40,500 --> 00:16:50,310 Globalisation is not dead, but it's accelerating its transformation, and what the pandemic is doing is compressing into the period of a year or two. 142 00:16:50,310 --> 00:16:54,510 Trends that would have taken 10, 20 years to emerge. 143 00:16:54,510 --> 00:16:58,980 It's accelerating time. It's accelerating evolution and change. 144 00:16:58,980 --> 00:17:09,390 And that places an onus on all of us to think differently. What could have been gradual evolution of our thinking now needs to be accelerated. 145 00:17:09,390 --> 00:17:17,230 And what the book tries to do is provide a catalyst for this thinking to allow on multiple dimensions. 146 00:17:17,230 --> 00:17:27,080 Readers to reflect on how the pandemic could change the world, but what we need to do as actors. 147 00:17:27,080 --> 00:17:32,860 The lesson I take away from history and from previous crises. 148 00:17:32,860 --> 00:17:39,920 And the huge challenges that we face. Is that the future is not set in stone at all? 149 00:17:39,920 --> 00:17:47,110 It is what we make of it. It's made by all of us as individual actors working together. 150 00:17:47,110 --> 00:17:54,910 Of course, politicians are important. And we may be lucky or unlucky in the politicians that we have. 151 00:17:54,910 --> 00:18:00,280 But we shouldn't believe that we just are passive. First, we vote for the politicians, 152 00:18:00,280 --> 00:18:05,500 but of course we can also vote them out in countries where democracy exists and we can 153 00:18:05,500 --> 00:18:10,810 do things in many other dimensions which don't necessarily depend on political will, 154 00:18:10,810 --> 00:18:15,520 what firms do in their companies and the decisions they make. 155 00:18:15,520 --> 00:18:21,640 What we do in our cities and how we read and transform, rethink and we transform our cities, 156 00:18:21,640 --> 00:18:27,190 and that's the focus of another chapter how we work together. 157 00:18:27,190 --> 00:18:37,030 The extent to which we offer solidarity. The extent to which we recognise some of the issues which were hidden before the pandemic like mental health. 158 00:18:37,030 --> 00:18:44,980 Which need to be revealed and dealt with. As other diseases are and sickness. 159 00:18:44,980 --> 00:18:55,500 The pandemic has revealed many things about. The circles of trust that we have, who we can rely on, what systems we can rely on. 160 00:18:55,500 --> 00:19:04,530 And as we look around the world and trying to make sense of why some countries have done so well and others so badly in light of the pandemic, 161 00:19:04,530 --> 00:19:10,650 I go through an analysis of what it is that explains this. 162 00:19:10,650 --> 00:19:13,200 Why is it that some countries, even in Europe? 163 00:19:13,200 --> 00:19:22,260 Greece has done much better than much wealthier countries like Germany, the U.K. and the countries with the best science, like the U.K. and the U.S., 164 00:19:22,260 --> 00:19:30,540 have some of the highest levels of per capita per capita mortality and very poor countries like Mongolia and Vietnam that have much weaker science. 165 00:19:30,540 --> 00:19:36,290 I've done much better, and it's not about autocracy or democracy. 166 00:19:36,290 --> 00:19:43,150 Taiwan has done well as a democracy, and South Korea has done well in Australia, New Zealand and so is China. 167 00:19:43,150 --> 00:19:51,020 As an autocracy. It's much more complicated, it's about trust, it's about listening. 168 00:19:51,020 --> 00:19:55,850 It's about the capability to discern what's going on early and act on it. 169 00:19:55,850 --> 00:20:05,310 The weak signals. Finding it's about understanding previous experience, which is one of the reason why Chinese neighbours, China's neighbours, 170 00:20:05,310 --> 00:20:09,990 were so effective at managing this because they'd been there before and they'd seen it before, 171 00:20:09,990 --> 00:20:14,310 and they were picking up informally long before the W.H.O. said. 172 00:20:14,310 --> 00:20:20,770 What was happening? What was happening in Wuhan? 173 00:20:20,770 --> 00:20:27,430 Countries that are arrogant then are too powerful where leaders are populists have uniformly done badly, 174 00:20:27,430 --> 00:20:34,990 those that haven't listened intently to the science. Those that haven't listened to the World Health Organisation. 175 00:20:34,990 --> 00:20:44,150 What the pandemic has shown us is the need not only for greater solidarity within our countries, but globally. 176 00:20:44,150 --> 00:20:48,830 While the rich countries have been able to look after themselves for a large part, 177 00:20:48,830 --> 00:20:55,110 many more people will die of starvation, then we'll die of COVID 19. 178 00:20:55,110 --> 00:21:00,480 Three unlikely that anyone will die of starvation as a result of the pandemic in the rich countries. 179 00:21:00,480 --> 00:21:05,760 The World Bank estimates that one hundred and twenty five million more people will be 180 00:21:05,760 --> 00:21:11,640 pushed into absolute poverty that's living under $1 90 a day in developing countries. 181 00:21:11,640 --> 00:21:19,530 The SDGs the Sustainable Development Goals have been derailed by at least five or 10 years. 182 00:21:19,530 --> 00:21:28,500 Lack of funding, lack of capacity, and we need to redouble our efforts in this G7 coming up is an opportunity to stop that. 183 00:21:28,500 --> 00:21:35,520 But the U.K. cutting its aid budget, of course, is heading in exactly the wrong direction in terms of signals on this. 184 00:21:35,520 --> 00:21:39,660 And as countries, the rich countries economies contracted in 2020, 185 00:21:39,660 --> 00:21:46,410 so did aid much more needs to be done and much more needs to be done to reinforce global institutions. 186 00:21:46,410 --> 00:21:53,450 If there's one thing that this pandemic has taught us, I hope it's the need. 187 00:21:53,450 --> 00:22:03,560 To cooperate between countries, there is no wall high enough that will keep out the great threats that we face in the future be like climate change, 188 00:22:03,560 --> 00:22:12,330 like pandemics or other great threats. But one high walls do keep is the ideas, the technologies. 189 00:22:12,330 --> 00:22:19,070 The people, the investment, the export opportunities and most of all, 190 00:22:19,070 --> 00:22:24,210 our understanding and ability to cooperate with others to manage these shared threats. 191 00:22:24,210 --> 00:22:33,230 The World Health Organisation is far from perfect. It urgently needs reform media resources. 192 00:22:33,230 --> 00:22:40,700 A new capability to stop global threats, and I talk about this in the chapter on stopping future crises. 193 00:22:40,700 --> 00:22:45,050 Is it possible? And I've interviewed many pandemic and other specialists. 194 00:22:45,050 --> 00:22:54,080 Certainly it is. We spend over a thousand times as much money on military preparedness than we do on pandemic preparedness. 195 00:22:54,080 --> 00:23:05,060 Even though all the intelligence agencies will tell us that the threat to our lives is far greater from pandemics than it is from a military conflict. 196 00:23:05,060 --> 00:23:09,830 Why is this? Why are we using the rear-view mirror? Why have we so desperately failed? 197 00:23:09,830 --> 00:23:15,530 And we need to look forward as to what the threats are and they can be stopped? 198 00:23:15,530 --> 00:23:22,190 And of course, this applies to climate change as well. Has the pandemic helped us deal with climate change? 199 00:23:22,190 --> 00:23:28,820 I hope so. Certainly, while two pandemics on we emitting much less, we fly much less to be driving much less, 200 00:23:28,820 --> 00:23:34,580 etc. The real question is how the stimulus package is to recover from the pandemic. 201 00:23:34,580 --> 00:23:41,370 I spent after the 2007 08 financial crisis, there was a massive spike. 202 00:23:41,370 --> 00:23:49,940 In greenhouse gas emissions, as more and more infrastructure was built as the stimulus was spent on cement and steel. 203 00:23:49,940 --> 00:23:51,530 And that's what we need to avoid. 204 00:23:51,530 --> 00:24:00,670 So now is the time to think about now is the time to ensure that this massive stimulus of 16 trillion dollars that's been talked about. 205 00:24:00,670 --> 00:24:10,770 Is spent wisely that we have a Green New Deal implemented, and it's heartening to see that many of these things are already happening in the US. 206 00:24:10,770 --> 00:24:21,430 The book. Covers many different dimensions, and I hope that all of you will recognise in parts of it things which are dear to you. 207 00:24:21,430 --> 00:24:29,410 I don't expect you to necessarily agree with all of it, but what I hope it does is stimulate your thinking, 208 00:24:29,410 --> 00:24:34,720 give you insights into some of the things that the pandemic has caused and revealed you might 209 00:24:34,720 --> 00:24:39,850 not have been aware of and help you think about how your lives and those that you care about, 210 00:24:39,850 --> 00:24:49,480 whether it's the organisations or the individuals might change as a result and how you can be part of this change. 211 00:24:49,480 --> 00:24:55,750 I believe that we all have the power and I've seen it in my life not only. 212 00:24:55,750 --> 00:25:04,110 But the historical lessons that we read about with the Second World War or others, but I've seen it in South Africa, my home country. 213 00:25:04,110 --> 00:25:07,950 How what I thought would never happen in my lifetime, a democratic, 214 00:25:07,950 --> 00:25:18,070 non-racial South Africa could be established not just because the remarkable leadership of an individual like Mandela, but because of. 215 00:25:18,070 --> 00:25:23,440 The struggle that was taking place within South Africa and globally to make this happen. 216 00:25:23,440 --> 00:25:31,680 This is a battle of ideas. This is about how we think about our lives, our world and our future. 217 00:25:31,680 --> 00:25:42,030 And if we don't engage in it, if we stay on the sidelines and let that happen, my fear is that it's going to unwind in very, very negative ways. 218 00:25:42,030 --> 00:25:49,580 We will have. Definitely more pandemics, which could be much worse than this. 219 00:25:49,580 --> 00:26:02,550 We will have rising inequality. We will have the negatives of globalisation, the hyper connectivity that I talk about in my book The Butterfly Effect. 220 00:26:02,550 --> 00:26:09,700 Being in Demick and as our system gets more and more complex and more and more integrated. 221 00:26:09,700 --> 00:26:14,200 That instability necessarily rises. 222 00:26:14,200 --> 00:26:21,530 But it can be managed. And it can be that these flows across national borders. 223 00:26:21,530 --> 00:26:26,850 Are a force for good. They the spread of the me too movement, they the spread of the Black Lives Matter movement, 224 00:26:26,850 --> 00:26:33,120 the spread of vaccines and the spread of new technologies that will give us zero carbon. 225 00:26:33,120 --> 00:26:38,080 Like all the good things that give us improving life expectancy and a better world. 226 00:26:38,080 --> 00:26:47,460 Turning our back on globalisation is not the answer. Ensuring that we manage it for our needs and those of the planet's people and planet. 227 00:26:47,460 --> 00:26:52,590 Needs to be the property. I hope Rescue provides the roadmap that I intended. 228 00:26:52,590 --> 00:27:00,210 I hope it provides the sense of purpose of urgency of need. 229 00:27:00,210 --> 00:27:10,260 And I hope, too, that you feel, as I did in concluding the book, if not now, when and if not we who. 230 00:27:10,260 --> 00:27:20,270 Thank you very much. Thanks, Ian. Let me tell you, we've got quite a lot of questions coming in and I'm going to start picking on those now. 231 00:27:20,270 --> 00:27:24,620 But I'm going to pick up also two or three points. But for example, Lynn Taylor, 232 00:27:24,620 --> 00:27:30,770 what are the most effective tools to combat the apparent collective amnesia of states and 233 00:27:30,770 --> 00:27:36,950 people after immediate crises past and for Mohammed Aloma in the age of polarisation, 234 00:27:36,950 --> 00:27:40,970 political and cultural populism. Racism eradicating nationalism? 235 00:27:40,970 --> 00:27:44,630 What will be left of globalisation? The globalisation of ideas. 236 00:27:44,630 --> 00:27:51,230 Not only of trade of people, not only money now, but before we go into questions like that? 237 00:27:51,230 --> 00:27:56,840 What I'd like to ask you because we share challenges that we've we've risen to. 238 00:27:56,840 --> 00:28:01,100 When you talk about this is the most intense book I've ever written. 239 00:28:01,100 --> 00:28:05,480 This time last year, you probably weren't really getting to the point of even thinking of writing it. 240 00:28:05,480 --> 00:28:07,970 This has been a remarkable speed. 241 00:28:07,970 --> 00:28:15,440 Whichever thing has happened, you are representative professor at the University of Oxford, and traditionally books like this take a long time. 242 00:28:15,440 --> 00:28:18,740 Historians write them rather than contemporary historians. 243 00:28:18,740 --> 00:28:26,570 But what you've produced is a book in about eight months published it literally within about two months of delivering the the text. 244 00:28:26,570 --> 00:28:30,560 Now I'm asking you that because it is about shooting at moving targets. 245 00:28:30,560 --> 00:28:38,570 It's about sourcing stuff. And I think therefore there's the discipline and I I talk about a book which I have I'm much impressed with. 246 00:28:38,570 --> 00:28:46,790 I use the word marvellous because it is, but that comes with an incredible discipline of how on earth you actually track stuff, 247 00:28:46,790 --> 00:28:55,730 research stuff, write stuff, get it edited and get it published in a timely way, which means we can talk about this in in May of 2021. 248 00:28:55,730 --> 00:29:02,410 That May of 2022. Was it awful? Not awful, no. 249 00:29:02,410 --> 00:29:08,350 You know, the pandemic, one of the silver linings for me of the pandemic is that basically being grounded, 250 00:29:08,350 --> 00:29:16,750 having not travelling, not going to many meetings and and being energised by concern. 251 00:29:16,750 --> 00:29:24,820 So it's, you know, it's tough and it's tough on those around me when I'm spending my nights at the computer rather than with them. 252 00:29:24,820 --> 00:29:32,220 Did you feel about shadows all the time? It is your moving target is right. 253 00:29:32,220 --> 00:29:39,900 I'm very relieved, but so far, I think I started it in basically in September. 254 00:29:39,900 --> 00:29:42,270 I finished it in March. 255 00:29:42,270 --> 00:29:53,860 So far, history hasn't overtaken me and I was able to capture, for example, the transition in the US, from Trump to Biden in a massive transition. 256 00:29:53,860 --> 00:29:57,060 If I hadn't captured that, that would be a problem. 257 00:29:57,060 --> 00:30:03,120 And I was able to, although I didn't pick it up, 3M's basically the sorts of things that he's done. 258 00:30:03,120 --> 00:30:06,570 So so far, I don't feel that I've been overtaken by history. 259 00:30:06,570 --> 00:30:10,050 But but there's no doubt that, you know, 260 00:30:10,050 --> 00:30:17,940 maybe there'll be a second edition and it'll be slightly updated and different with some benefit of more information and hindsight. 261 00:30:17,940 --> 00:30:29,430 I think that the the trends I'm picking up on all of the details will obviously require updating, but I think that the point is one that is robust. 262 00:30:29,430 --> 00:30:36,060 And you know, Nick, that I've been saying since the butterfly defect in 2012 that there's going to be a global, 263 00:30:36,060 --> 00:30:40,020 there's gonna be a pandemic and it's going to lead a global financial crisis. 264 00:30:40,020 --> 00:30:46,170 For me, this is not news, but for me, this is like the timing, of course, and where it came from. 265 00:30:46,170 --> 00:30:50,790 That's that is never known. And it could have come from anywhere people would blame. 266 00:30:50,790 --> 00:30:55,620 Not this Trump. The China could have come from anywhere. It could have come from any country. Well, let me press you. 267 00:30:55,620 --> 00:30:56,760 I'm so sorry. 268 00:30:56,760 --> 00:31:05,040 I think that that is a constant which which which also I really felt I had to talk about that, and I hope I don't talk about it too much in the book. 269 00:31:05,040 --> 00:31:10,320 You talk essentially, and I'm paraphrasing here, we need to do things in a different way. 270 00:31:10,320 --> 00:31:16,170 We need to rebuild. And the question for me is, but can we rebuild? 271 00:31:16,170 --> 00:31:22,560 Is there enough political will? Because only yesterday you have the report from the International Energy Agency from Fatih Birol, 272 00:31:22,560 --> 00:31:28,050 the head of the agency, saying that we're facing enormous, enormous challenges. 273 00:31:28,050 --> 00:31:32,040 On energy, you've got you've got John, John Kerry, 274 00:31:32,040 --> 00:31:39,660 the US climate are saying we're not even close to agreeing a half of the reductions that are needed on climate emergency. 275 00:31:39,660 --> 00:31:47,790 And I'm using these examples as really evidence that it's incredibly difficult to get people to think and change in a different way, 276 00:31:47,790 --> 00:31:56,060 whether it be corporate leaders or government leaders in the way that you are advocating with the speed that you are advocating. 277 00:31:56,060 --> 00:32:00,620 No, absolutely, and you know, you're doing it with with your organisation thinking the unthinkable, 278 00:32:00,620 --> 00:32:09,740 also trying to raise this, but it's incredibly difficult. I have no, you know, I'm not confident that it's going to be won. 279 00:32:09,740 --> 00:32:12,830 But if you don't engage in the battle, if you don't surface, 280 00:32:12,830 --> 00:32:18,290 the idea is if you don't try to mobilise opinion and persuade people, then you're definitely going to lose. 281 00:32:18,290 --> 00:32:23,150 And as we've seen in all these shifts in ideas, they start in small places, 282 00:32:23,150 --> 00:32:27,440 they grow and they they care about, you know, Greta Thunberg stands outside her school. 283 00:32:27,440 --> 00:32:34,480 She doesn't think she's going to change the world, and she creates a worldwide movement to me to tweet does the same thing. 284 00:32:34,480 --> 00:32:44,380 Small changes, which seem absolutely marginal and impossibly in terms of the scale of the challenge do make systemic differences at times. 285 00:32:44,380 --> 00:32:50,380 Obviously, people working together and lots of different people are making similar arguments to me. 286 00:32:50,380 --> 00:32:58,810 I think so. Victory is not assured. The struggle is very tough, but if you don't engage, you're definitely going to lose. 287 00:32:58,810 --> 00:33:06,200 And if you only make 20 percent of the gain that you expected to make, you've still made enormous progress. 288 00:33:06,200 --> 00:33:10,120 You know, I will sleep very well thinking I've achieved an enormous amount. 289 00:33:10,120 --> 00:33:15,880 If some of the things, but not necessarily all the things that I'm pushing for it come about. 290 00:33:15,880 --> 00:33:19,870 So it's part of a thing that sort of. It's certainly not about me and what I'm saying. 291 00:33:19,870 --> 00:33:23,470 It's about people feeling around the world. That change is necessary. 292 00:33:23,470 --> 00:33:27,850 I think what we're seeing, by the way, in the US is proof that this does happen. 293 00:33:27,850 --> 00:33:33,880 Of course, we can look at the negative side. Trump got 10 million more votes than he did in the prior election. 294 00:33:33,880 --> 00:33:43,660 That's bad news for me. But Biden won, and Biden is being more radical that anyone thought was possible certainly much more than Obama was. 295 00:33:43,660 --> 00:33:51,640 If that can happen in the U.S., it can happen elsewhere. And I believe it will be part of this movement for change if we want it to be. 296 00:33:51,640 --> 00:33:57,380 Let's talk about economics, and I have to say many of your sections in chapters are Rescue, Rescue, Rescue Rescue. 297 00:33:57,380 --> 00:34:02,170 So Rescue is is a is a spine which goes right through the book. 298 00:34:02,170 --> 00:34:05,470 But let me ask you about the economics of all of this. 299 00:34:05,470 --> 00:34:11,410 And that's where your speciality has been in your professional focus has been for so many years. 300 00:34:11,410 --> 00:34:17,500 You are excoriating about what will happen if there is a default to austerity as a way 301 00:34:17,500 --> 00:34:22,240 of clawing back the enormous amount of money that governments have been spending. 302 00:34:22,240 --> 00:34:32,110 You also talk about this is now the age of government. Now what I'm going to ask you is how can that be achieved if there's going to be no austerity? 303 00:34:32,110 --> 00:34:44,280 How do they claw back the enormity of money the governments and the state have been pouring after saving jobs, saving businesses, saving the economy? 304 00:34:44,280 --> 00:34:52,740 Yeah. Absolutely central question. My own view is that the pendulum is shifting and it's shifting extremely rapidly. 305 00:34:52,740 --> 00:34:59,820 We back away from the, you know, what we've experienced since the Thatcher Reagan revolution, the pendulum swinging back. 306 00:34:59,820 --> 00:35:05,700 I don't think it's going to go all the way back, and I'm not advocating that it goes to the sorts of state we had in the past. 307 00:35:05,700 --> 00:35:12,990 We need modern, effective states not not necessarily like the past, and there's a lot of reason why we can be optimistic about that. 308 00:35:12,990 --> 00:35:18,900 Interest rates need to stay very low to make this amount of debt fundable. 309 00:35:18,900 --> 00:35:23,040 We need to ensure that we have more dynamism in our economies, and I talk about that. 310 00:35:23,040 --> 00:35:28,800 We need more productive economies, more effective economies and efficient, productive economies. 311 00:35:28,800 --> 00:35:34,920 And of course, we need to ensure that it's worth the investment and what the money spent on that matters. 312 00:35:34,920 --> 00:35:39,900 If the money is wasted and given to pals of the ministers, then it's a waste of money. 313 00:35:39,900 --> 00:35:42,030 We are not going to get value for it. 314 00:35:42,030 --> 00:35:50,940 But if it's invested in education, in an energy transition, in a better health service, then you improve the effectiveness of your country. 315 00:35:50,940 --> 00:36:00,240 You improve your the stock of people and their skills, and you improve your efficiency and output and your economy grows more quickly. 316 00:36:00,240 --> 00:36:03,990 So it's not a question of how much money you spend is how you spend it. 317 00:36:03,990 --> 00:36:07,260 That really matters. The devil is in that detail. 318 00:36:07,260 --> 00:36:13,650 We can have a massive debt and it leads to a debt crisis, or we can have a massive debt and that leads to higher growth. 319 00:36:13,650 --> 00:36:19,560 The IMF, which is the sort of cathedral of orthodoxy in economics, 320 00:36:19,560 --> 00:36:24,030 I did something with Christina Georgieva, the head of the IMF, a couple of weeks ago. 321 00:36:24,030 --> 00:36:31,800 And she, you know, quite remarkably, is saying, we need bigger debts, we need more spending by governments. 322 00:36:31,800 --> 00:36:36,930 That's the way out of this crisis. The ECB, Christine Lagarde is saying the same thing. 323 00:36:36,930 --> 00:36:41,640 So it's not just the sort of I'm not just a lefty economists saying this. 324 00:36:41,640 --> 00:36:45,750 The centrists, the orthodoxy are saying the same thing. 325 00:36:45,750 --> 00:36:50,010 And I think when they say that and supports it, we should take comfort. 326 00:36:50,010 --> 00:36:51,150 But it does in the end, 327 00:36:51,150 --> 00:36:58,590 come down to this key question of how the money is spent is absolutely crucial is it's spent in ways that will stop the next pandemic, 328 00:36:58,590 --> 00:37:04,680 create growth, stop the crises, reduce risk and generate sustainable growth. 329 00:37:04,680 --> 00:37:11,160 Or is it spent in ways which are wasteful and increases inequality? That's just going to asset price booms, for example, 330 00:37:11,160 --> 00:37:19,530 housing booms and technology stock booms that matches what you do with the money is what's important, not necessarily how much you have. 331 00:37:19,530 --> 00:37:24,390 Well, leaders tend to be elected. Political parties tend to be elected on the basis that they're going to. 332 00:37:24,390 --> 00:37:33,030 They're promising that the economy will be in good hands. There's a question here from Srikanth mangalam with questionable leadership in many 333 00:37:33,030 --> 00:37:37,350 countries that are putting democratic institutions at risk in the aftermath of the pandemic. 334 00:37:37,350 --> 00:37:43,090 Where do we citizens draw inspiration from to develop and build compassionate societies? 335 00:37:43,090 --> 00:37:47,520 Are we as citizens at fault entirely for the leaders we have created? 336 00:37:47,520 --> 00:37:55,830 The emphasis there is on compassion and compassion is what the handing out of this vast amount of debt has been about. 337 00:37:55,830 --> 00:38:03,120 It's been about saving sanity and stability. Do you think the political leaders or the current generation of political leaders, 338 00:38:03,120 --> 00:38:11,200 which is certainly central to our thinking, the unthinkable work really have the ability to break with conformity. 339 00:38:11,200 --> 00:38:17,200 They are doing things that, you know, would have been unthinkable in in January 2020. 340 00:38:17,200 --> 00:38:25,600 So leaders around the world are making decisions that that reflect this ability to change their minds, 341 00:38:25,600 --> 00:38:28,720 many of them and are doing it too little, too late. 342 00:38:28,720 --> 00:38:34,210 Some of them might have stuck their heads in the sand, and some are still saying, I mean, they I think they are. 343 00:38:34,210 --> 00:38:39,670 One or two leaders know that Santa's cupboard doesn't really exist, but they are the tiny minority, an exception. 344 00:38:39,670 --> 00:38:44,470 So people need us are doing things. The question is, are they doing them in the right way? 345 00:38:44,470 --> 00:38:48,610 And are they going to revert to their bad old ways when the pandemic is over? 346 00:38:48,610 --> 00:38:52,340 And and that's what the jury's out. 347 00:38:52,340 --> 00:38:58,060 So and we don't know the answer, and that's what this book is about is we cannot allow that reversion. 348 00:38:58,060 --> 00:39:03,340 And we need to ensure that the way that the money spent, 349 00:39:03,340 --> 00:39:11,170 the way that this change happens is done in a way that's going to benefit poor people, poor countries and overcome the challenges. 350 00:39:11,170 --> 00:39:15,400 So that's what it's about. Does it require different leaders? 351 00:39:15,400 --> 00:39:23,470 I'm sure in many societies it does, but that's what elections are for in countries where we're allowed to elect our leaders and in other countries, 352 00:39:23,470 --> 00:39:29,860 there will be public pressure as well. We've seen these movements across Eastern Europe, for example, in that respect. 353 00:39:29,860 --> 00:39:37,630 So I'm more optimistic about that. Do you want me, Nick, to get back to these, these other questions? 354 00:39:37,630 --> 00:39:42,070 Let me just continue this, if I may, because you say was the end of the book. 355 00:39:42,070 --> 00:39:49,720 COVID 19 has shattered the mental mirrors that have prevented us from breaking from the past and embracing new horizons. 356 00:39:49,720 --> 00:39:53,670 And there's there's a part of. My analysis, my personal analysis, 357 00:39:53,670 --> 00:40:00,150 which is that it's incredibly difficult with the election cycles and so on to find politicians and leaders who are 358 00:40:00,150 --> 00:40:06,540 prepared to dispense with the orthodoxy that got them to where they are and which they've appealed to the public on. 359 00:40:06,540 --> 00:40:17,780 And I'm pushing you on this because of your own experience in several international institutions as to whether this really can be achievable. 360 00:40:17,780 --> 00:40:22,380 The short termism of of politics in the short term has meant business business as well, 361 00:40:22,380 --> 00:40:31,530 with the incentives on business that people get rewarded on profits in the short term, not whether the firm is sustainable. 362 00:40:31,530 --> 00:40:37,790 Our massive problem, and that's what the Oxford Martin Commission for future generations and the report now for the long term 363 00:40:37,790 --> 00:40:44,720 was all about that we created how do you create a longer term and the many ways of doing this vision? 364 00:40:44,720 --> 00:40:50,120 But I do think and you know, we're seeing again in the change. 365 00:40:50,120 --> 00:40:54,890 Great hope. If you had said to these governments in January 2020, 366 00:40:54,890 --> 00:41:03,770 you'd be doing the following things they would have accused you of some sort of, you know, political caricature joke. 367 00:41:03,770 --> 00:41:12,590 It's just not possible that we will be telling people whether it's when to hug or whether we're going to spend 15 percent of GDP and run a deficit, 368 00:41:12,590 --> 00:41:23,450 which is the greatest deficit the UK has ever run. Johnson would have told you that's impossible, as would have other leaders, so they are doing it. 369 00:41:23,450 --> 00:41:29,660 The question is to me, not what they're doing now. But your question, I think, is is this politically sustainable? 370 00:41:29,660 --> 00:41:33,530 Are they going to revert to their bold battle? Was, is that hardwired into them? 371 00:41:33,530 --> 00:41:38,720 That depends on what voters demand. That's my lesson from the Second World War. 372 00:41:38,720 --> 00:41:47,690 If Churchill can be deposed after winning the Second World War, anyone can be deposed in the UK or in the US or elsewhere in a democracy. 373 00:41:47,690 --> 00:41:54,380 People, if people want a different world, they were created no matter how popular or populist their leader might seem in the short term. 374 00:41:54,380 --> 00:42:02,240 And we've seen these very sharp swings in political opinion polls, we've seen how quickly that people can fall off the pedestals. 375 00:42:02,240 --> 00:42:06,720 And my view is that that is what's going to happen. People are going to have to be accountable. 376 00:42:06,720 --> 00:42:15,440 The, you know, the deaths per capita is one way to say, how have you done, Mr. Prime Minister or president in COVID 19? 377 00:42:15,440 --> 00:42:21,950 And that extremely differential across countries, I've put to you that actually there's a good chance that you would be able 378 00:42:21,950 --> 00:42:27,050 to achieve or what you're suggesting is achievable if it were only COVID 19. 379 00:42:27,050 --> 00:42:33,470 But you need to then surely layer on the climate emergency and the urgency of remaining within 1.5 degrees, 380 00:42:33,470 --> 00:42:41,510 probably within the next six or seven years only. And the massive amount of probably to most people's sacrifice, not least in financial, 381 00:42:41,510 --> 00:42:45,410 the finances of just where you boil is going to come from and how are you going to change it? 382 00:42:45,410 --> 00:42:54,020 And so on that the level of change we're talking about now is more than just COVID 19 and the incredible seismic impact. 383 00:42:54,020 --> 00:42:58,610 It's about a profound change to the stability we've taken for granted, 384 00:42:58,610 --> 00:43:06,020 which therefore that's why I'm asking whether you're rescuing but actually only rescuing in an intermittent way, 385 00:43:06,020 --> 00:43:11,280 because what's coming down the track is going to be even more seismic. 386 00:43:11,280 --> 00:43:18,760 Yeah, well, one of the reasons I like the title rescue is that it doesn't tell you what, what happens after you rescue, 387 00:43:18,760 --> 00:43:25,500 you know, you get rescued from the let's say, you know, you're drowning and you're rescued. 388 00:43:25,500 --> 00:43:31,050 You learn you live another day. You have new options. You can start again. 389 00:43:31,050 --> 00:43:36,900 You might have lost everything, but you have more opportunities to go forward better than the alternatives. 390 00:43:36,900 --> 00:43:42,810 So rescue has a potential for a positive outcome, but it's not a guarantee at all. 391 00:43:42,810 --> 00:43:46,920 It depends what you do next after you rescue. That will determine that. 392 00:43:46,920 --> 00:43:53,520 And you're absolutely right. This is just one of the many compounding problems climate and then many others. 393 00:43:53,520 --> 00:44:00,420 What I believe and I hope the book convinces readers of is that the idea that you 394 00:44:00,420 --> 00:44:05,100 somehow are going to be relapsing to a more stable world if you don't do anything, 395 00:44:05,100 --> 00:44:12,590 is the fantasy. The future world is radically uncertain and unstable. 396 00:44:12,590 --> 00:44:16,790 It's a world in which we'll have many more pandemics. We didn't like this pandemic. 397 00:44:16,790 --> 00:44:22,190 Well, you better make sure that you do something to stop the next one coming and because they're going to be more. 398 00:44:22,190 --> 00:44:30,740 It's hardwired into the system that these viruses are growing around the world would go through airport hubs. 399 00:44:30,740 --> 00:44:37,460 So it's like cyber viruses are can be going through cyber systems, energy systems. 400 00:44:37,460 --> 00:44:46,340 If we don't change them, we'll create escalating destabilising climate change and all these other Typekit complex destabilising systems. 401 00:44:46,340 --> 00:44:48,860 That's hard wired. That's inevitable. 402 00:44:48,860 --> 00:44:56,960 So if we want to not have if we want a future that's more predictable, if we want a future that's more stable, more comfortable. 403 00:44:56,960 --> 00:45:03,290 Then we need to change now. It might sound paradoxical, but you have to change to be like you were. 404 00:45:03,290 --> 00:45:07,430 But that's what you have to do if you want a happy, peaceful world. 405 00:45:07,430 --> 00:45:13,020 You have to change. You go back, you go back to Canes and say the day has arrived. 406 00:45:13,020 --> 00:45:18,720 Milton Friedman's day is dead, as is underscored by the purpose work of that site, business school and so on. 407 00:45:18,720 --> 00:45:25,260 But is there a model you could refer to quite apart from World War one, World War Two and so on? 408 00:45:25,260 --> 00:45:31,200 We're obviously there was almost no data and none of the data that populates models these days. 409 00:45:31,200 --> 00:45:40,060 Is there a model which would convince those who have to take big decisions that this is a risk worth taking? 410 00:45:40,060 --> 00:45:44,650 They we are always making big decisions. 411 00:45:44,650 --> 00:45:52,930 You know, governments are allocating their budget, the UK has just increased its military budget by a record amount that's based 412 00:45:52,930 --> 00:45:56,860 on a decision about what the threats are and what how to spend the money. 413 00:45:56,860 --> 00:46:03,940 They've cut the aid budget by a third. That's a decision. And so it's happening all the time on the basis of evidence. 414 00:46:03,940 --> 00:46:12,520 I'm arguing that those are the wrong sorts of decisions and we need to think differently, not only nationally but also globally about these things. 415 00:46:12,520 --> 00:46:21,310 So we have the data. Is there a model? There's not a one size fits all for all countries, but certainly there are many things that I talk about. 416 00:46:21,310 --> 00:46:24,850 Them main risk is what can be done to stop future pandemics. 417 00:46:24,850 --> 00:46:32,830 We know what to do to reduce the risks of climate change, just the acceleration of the transformation to zero carbon. 418 00:46:32,830 --> 00:46:36,450 We know how to overcome inequality. I mean, this is not rocket science. 419 00:46:36,450 --> 00:46:40,840 Many countries that have done it with even within Europe, you can compare countries, 420 00:46:40,840 --> 00:46:47,980 some we have some of the lowest inequality in the world and some of them have left some of the highest in the advanced economies like the U.K., 421 00:46:47,980 --> 00:46:52,930 like the U.S. we know how to do these things. So there's no one Keynes. 422 00:46:52,930 --> 00:47:01,240 And yes, we do need intellectual leadership. But I believe that most of what needs to be done is already reasonably apparent. 423 00:47:01,240 --> 00:47:10,430 And if we put our will to it and we put that allocate money to it, we can solve the problems of the world with the knowledge we have. 424 00:47:10,430 --> 00:47:16,610 I now haven't forgotten Lynne and Muhammad, but I want to pick up a couple of questions which have just come in on the economy, 425 00:47:16,610 --> 00:47:23,150 Ian from Max Dry If every country has the same debt problem, why not just all mutually agreed to write it off? 426 00:47:23,150 --> 00:47:27,320 After all, what is money? It's not real. It's only numbers to keep score, right? 427 00:47:27,320 --> 00:47:31,070 And Bruce McNaughton with low interest rates and attempts to grow GDP. 428 00:47:31,070 --> 00:47:38,090 And of course, you say that GDP doesn't actually accurately measure anymore what the state of the economy and everything is. 429 00:47:38,090 --> 00:47:44,870 What is the impact of inflation on recovery and rescue? Yeah. 430 00:47:44,870 --> 00:47:53,690 Right of that question reminds me of the conversations I had in my when when I used to wear a World Bank hat and in South Africa, 431 00:47:53,690 --> 00:48:02,450 where the trade unions and others discussed the rights of debt, I believe that there should be a write off of debts of developing countries now. 432 00:48:02,450 --> 00:48:11,570 I believe that in order to put the SDGs back on track, that the low income countries that have that will spend the money appropriately. 433 00:48:11,570 --> 00:48:17,390 Not that they put the money in Swiss bank accounts, but where money is being spent appropriately, 434 00:48:17,390 --> 00:48:20,900 that there should be a right of debt to get more fiscal space. 435 00:48:20,900 --> 00:48:27,230 And it's really one of the tragedies of this particular crisis compared to previous crises that 436 00:48:27,230 --> 00:48:32,210 that discussion hasn't advanced and that just has very poor leadership in the G7 and the G20, 437 00:48:32,210 --> 00:48:37,190 because that's what led it before. But global rising death is a slightly different question. 438 00:48:37,190 --> 00:48:44,270 Remember that debt is something that we also have assets our pensioners, other people who are going to get repaid. 439 00:48:44,270 --> 00:48:51,230 These debts, you're giving all your money that then gets lent on to someone else and you need to get it back as a pensioner. 440 00:48:51,230 --> 00:48:55,640 Certainly, I feel that as a president, I'm sure you didn't like approaching pension age. 441 00:48:55,640 --> 00:49:01,800 The other side of these debt transactions are people who are lending their savings. 442 00:49:01,800 --> 00:49:05,400 Or institutions which are giving their savings and that has to be resolved. 443 00:49:05,400 --> 00:49:12,930 You can't just magic away that problem. So that is not necessary now when governments are creating debt. 444 00:49:12,930 --> 00:49:18,810 They can be a sort of infinite postponement of if interest rates are low enough. 445 00:49:18,810 --> 00:49:27,090 And that leads to the next question, which is on inflation. Inflation is a threat, a possible threat, 446 00:49:27,090 --> 00:49:35,760 and it would lead to higher interest rates and it would unwind many of the benefits we're having of being able to live off very high levels of debt. 447 00:49:35,760 --> 00:49:42,420 It would also, of course, lead to all sorts of other problems. Inflation tends to penalise people on fixed incomes. 448 00:49:42,420 --> 00:49:48,780 Pensioners, people on unemployment, pay and others, so it needs to be managed. 449 00:49:48,780 --> 00:49:57,120 My own view is that the threat is low, that energy prices which have driven inflation often in the past, are not going to go up dramatically. 450 00:49:57,120 --> 00:50:05,640 And as we move to renewables, world actually will go down. So that is one major inflation threat that's taken away. 451 00:50:05,640 --> 00:50:12,270 What would cause a big inflation spike is a global conflict and that needs to be avoided at all costs. 452 00:50:12,270 --> 00:50:18,930 What we're also aggravated is tensions and rising tensions between the US or others and China. 453 00:50:18,930 --> 00:50:22,020 And that, in my view, needs to be managed down that tension, 454 00:50:22,020 --> 00:50:29,670 even though we need to have very serious and rigorous discussions with China on human rights abuses and other things that we're concerned about. 455 00:50:29,670 --> 00:50:33,210 But inflation is a question that needs to be managed now. 456 00:50:33,210 --> 00:50:41,160 My view is it's a low risk, but it's a risk that needs to be managed and certainly it has not gone away indefinitely. 457 00:50:41,160 --> 00:50:44,980 That that idea, I think, is hopeful but not realistic. 458 00:50:44,980 --> 00:50:49,910 So it's a concern. It's not a concern, I believe, over the next few years. 459 00:50:49,910 --> 00:50:54,240 Immediate, immediate concern. But it needs to be something to be very vigilant about. 460 00:50:54,240 --> 00:51:01,560 Maybe some inflation is fine. Inflation up to five percent or something is fine is when starts going up into 10, 20, 461 00:51:01,560 --> 00:51:07,620 30 percent that we really need to get concerned and it's creeping up at the moment with worries in the markets. 462 00:51:07,620 --> 00:51:10,240 Let me pick up that question from Linda Taylor. Thanks for your patience. 463 00:51:10,240 --> 00:51:16,160 Lynn, what are the most effective tools to combat the apparent collective amnesia? 464 00:51:16,160 --> 00:51:23,940 The phrase there in the question of states and people after immediate crises past, I'd put you actually this. 465 00:51:23,940 --> 00:51:29,880 This immediate crisis is not going to pass. It's going to be with us for a much longer period than anyone assumes. 466 00:51:29,880 --> 00:51:32,460 And certainly, that's the kind of advice we're seeing, I think, 467 00:51:32,460 --> 00:51:39,520 from the World Health Organisation, but particularly this issue of collective amnesia of states. 468 00:51:39,520 --> 00:51:44,650 Yeah, thanks, Lyn, and hello to you. One of the people, I do know that that's that's in on this. 469 00:51:44,650 --> 00:51:55,510 Thank you for joining. It's the collective amnesia of states, and also I think of societies is is a huge risk. 470 00:51:55,510 --> 00:52:00,640 I think the government will want us to to convince us that it's over and that it can go back. 471 00:52:00,640 --> 00:52:09,370 And of course, there's a lot of vested interests in the old system, whether it's people who are producing things for the military or anything else. 472 00:52:09,370 --> 00:52:16,330 Those that have existing contacts that are doing well out of the existing system have a very strong vested interest and lobbying. 473 00:52:16,330 --> 00:52:25,150 And the power of love is a massive issue at, especially in the US, where you need $10 billion to be president, $10 million to be a congressperson. 474 00:52:25,150 --> 00:52:27,520 So there's this interwoven system, 475 00:52:27,520 --> 00:52:34,570 which is vested in the past and that needs to be changed through regulation and through transparency and other means. 476 00:52:34,570 --> 00:52:46,210 And my view is that the collective amnesia needs to be countered by a constant reliving and retelling of the story so that a new narrative is told. 477 00:52:46,210 --> 00:52:53,080 And this book, I hope, will be a contribution to that. A new narrative is told about what are the threats that we face in our society. 478 00:52:53,080 --> 00:52:56,710 What are the issues we're concerned about? Why is inequality a big issue? 479 00:52:56,710 --> 00:53:02,710 Why's climate change? Why pandemics? Why do we need to focus on these issues and how do we overcome them? 480 00:53:02,710 --> 00:53:09,460 The amnesia after the First World War is what allowed the Second World War to happen and the Second World War, 481 00:53:09,460 --> 00:53:14,410 because these people, like Churchill and Roosevelt and many others had lived through two World Wars. 482 00:53:14,410 --> 00:53:20,500 They weren't going to let that happen again. Now we need to be darn sure that we understand that there's a rising risk. 483 00:53:20,500 --> 00:53:24,460 We've seen lots of pandemics in the world in the early part of this millennia. 484 00:53:24,460 --> 00:53:34,960 We've seen lots of threats and we need to as voters, as members of communities, as activists, we need to make sure that we raise this question. 485 00:53:34,960 --> 00:53:41,860 And just like amnesia regarding something like the Holocaust was a great danger and remains a great danger. 486 00:53:41,860 --> 00:53:46,840 So, too, is an amnesia about the other other dangers in our society that need to be overcome, 487 00:53:46,840 --> 00:53:51,250 as well as the blind spots not seeing what happens to be Amy communities, 488 00:53:51,250 --> 00:53:55,750 what not seeing, not seeing what happens in gender discrimination and so forth. 489 00:53:55,750 --> 00:53:59,290 So I believe it's about society desires. 490 00:53:59,290 --> 00:54:07,240 And so I believe in the end, individuals that express this by being part of communities that express these concerns. 491 00:54:07,240 --> 00:54:13,750 I think we're into the last five minutes in. So this may be the last question unless you you answer it quite sharply. 492 00:54:13,750 --> 00:54:16,990 I'm picking up on your section on rescue economics, 493 00:54:16,990 --> 00:54:24,730 where you say quote altering the language of public policy is vital, revealing a wider range of economic options. 494 00:54:24,730 --> 00:54:31,750 You asked this question yourself, but it's come as well from Daniel Scharf or any of the current variants of capitalism 495 00:54:31,750 --> 00:54:37,870 capable of sustaining a good life 10 billion people on this planet and its flora and fauna, 496 00:54:37,870 --> 00:54:44,530 underscoring really the David Attenborough view and which is from flora and fauna, international and so on, 497 00:54:44,530 --> 00:54:52,960 which is that actually we are now no longer living comfortably with nature, and we've got to accept that this is no longer acceptable. 498 00:54:52,960 --> 00:54:56,590 It's coming from André Hoffman as well, so you can see what that is going. 499 00:54:56,590 --> 00:55:01,480 But briefly, if you can, is there a compromise we're going to have to come to to save nature, 500 00:55:01,480 --> 00:55:07,030 to save the planet, but also a different kind of capitalism which will make this possible? 501 00:55:07,030 --> 00:55:12,370 Yes, we definitely need a different form of capitalism. Clearly, we need a zero carbon capitalism. 502 00:55:12,370 --> 00:55:18,790 We need a capitalism, I believe, which has formless meat eating for those that are eating excessive amounts of 503 00:55:18,790 --> 00:55:24,670 meat where we understand much better how to live in harmony of the planet, 504 00:55:24,670 --> 00:55:28,720 there's no one society I would hold up as a model. I think everyone is evolving. 505 00:55:28,720 --> 00:55:32,110 But some are closer to it. Some have much lower levels of inequality. 506 00:55:32,110 --> 00:55:41,320 Capitalism in for me is everything you know from Denmark, the US, everywhere except North Korea and maybe Venezuela and Cuba or capitalists. 507 00:55:41,320 --> 00:55:47,530 So there's a huge range. China is a state, in my view, in many ways, the state capitalist society. 508 00:55:47,530 --> 00:55:51,280 So there's a huge range and we can take elements of the different ones. 509 00:55:51,280 --> 00:55:54,610 But we fundamentally yes, the answer is we need to change. 510 00:55:54,610 --> 00:56:03,490 And what I argue very strongly in rescue is that I believe the pandemic can provide an added impetus to make these changes if it doesn't. 511 00:56:03,490 --> 00:56:10,930 And we go back to business as normal. The dangers are even greater that we go over not only the cliff in terms of future crises, 512 00:56:10,930 --> 00:56:15,580 but of course ecological collapse and all the other things that David Attenborough is concerned about. 513 00:56:15,580 --> 00:56:20,170 The final point I'd make is this is not about the number of people. You know, I did. 514 00:56:20,170 --> 00:56:24,370 The book is the planet full. I talk about that as well in rescue. 515 00:56:24,370 --> 00:56:30,730 We need to be very careful to. I think, for us to be seeing a baby bust, not a baby boom in many countries, 516 00:56:30,730 --> 00:56:37,870 but it's about what people do, and I believe people have the right to consume in an appropriate way. 517 00:56:37,870 --> 00:56:42,340 New York state consumes more energy than the whole of sub-Saharan Africa. 518 00:56:42,340 --> 00:56:46,600 It's about what people consume and how they consume it. That matters and that needs to change. 519 00:56:46,600 --> 00:56:50,020 And that means capitalism in the way it operates needs to change. 520 00:56:50,020 --> 00:56:56,740 Picking up on that, we've just got a moment or two here, but picking up on the future of capitalism by Paul Collier. 521 00:56:56,740 --> 00:57:03,550 But what Harry Braganza talks about is how he asks you how far is are you optimistic 522 00:57:03,550 --> 00:57:09,010 about our capacity to develop the asset of shared belonging and obligation today? 523 00:57:09,010 --> 00:57:18,310 This is part of a potentially very profound change in the way we live our consumer led life. 524 00:57:18,310 --> 00:57:26,470 Absolutely. And I think the greatest hope for the pandemic is that it's taught us to think much more about we, 525 00:57:26,470 --> 00:57:29,890 how vulnerable we all are, how much we depend on others, 526 00:57:29,890 --> 00:57:36,730 not only the essential workers, but those that support us in different ways, the people that we speak to, the people we engage with. 527 00:57:36,730 --> 00:57:45,250 I think it's it's led to this recalibration and this sense of shared belonging that we've all for the first time in the history of humanity, 528 00:57:45,250 --> 00:57:49,790 experienced something terrible, which is affecting everyone. 529 00:57:49,790 --> 00:57:54,790 We're seeing it dramatically in India now, but we've all seen it in different places in our societies. 530 00:57:54,790 --> 00:58:02,740 So that is this cataclysmic moment, which also can be a catalyst for, I believe, hope that's what rescues about. 531 00:58:02,740 --> 00:58:07,570 And I really hope that if you read it, you feel optimistic that you can be part of this change. 532 00:58:07,570 --> 00:58:10,390 And thank you so much for joining this Nikolaev for most minutes. 533 00:58:10,390 --> 00:58:18,880 You know, you made the point of saying Page 82 fundamental transformation in our attitudes is needed not only to where and how we work, 534 00:58:18,880 --> 00:58:25,900 but also to pay and rewards and incentivisation. Now, obviously, you're not the only person to be saying that, 535 00:58:25,900 --> 00:58:34,210 but it is part of a profound recalibration which would be necessary under the kind of thing that you are proposing now. 536 00:58:34,210 --> 00:58:38,440 Absolutely. Yeah. Well, Ian, thank you very much indeed. 537 00:58:38,440 --> 00:58:43,030 I'm thanking you for the book and for the pleasure of reading it. I did feel it was pleasure. 538 00:58:43,030 --> 00:58:47,590 I felt it coincided with a number of my own assessments, but it's brilliantly written. 539 00:58:47,590 --> 00:58:56,710 So thank you very much indeed for having this intense period of writing and reading in order to assemble this in literally about eight months. 540 00:58:56,710 --> 00:59:03,790 And you can buy the book, you can press the button at the bottom. It's a green button underneath the images of Ian and me. 541 00:59:03,790 --> 00:59:12,220 Thank you for inviting me in. Good luck. And the that things are moving very quickly, but I fear we haven't seen anything yet. 542 00:59:12,220 --> 00:59:18,040 And so your next edition will probably have to be written in about six months, not six years. 543 00:59:18,040 --> 00:59:28,220 If you've got the time. Thank you very much for inviting me in. Thanks to go ahead and thank all the participants from all over the world. 544 00:59:28,220 --> 00:59:30,370 Really appreciate you being here and thank you so much, Nick. 545 00:59:30,370 --> 00:59:37,420 It's been terrific in discussion with you and I hope that all the participants enjoy the book if they get it. 546 00:59:37,420 --> 00:59:41,830 Thank you. There's a lot. There's a lot of good stuff on the chat line as well saying exactly the same thing. 547 00:59:41,830 --> 00:59:46,120 Thank you for a fascinating discussion in Golden. Thank you very much. Bye bye. 548 00:59:46,120 --> 00:59:46,507 Thank you.