Davos 2017 - An Insight, An Idea with Michael Sandel

well good morning everybody and welcome to a conversation with Professor Michael Sandell the professor of philosophy who's currently working at Harvard University in the School of Government now it's often said that we live in extraordinary times and I think the fact that we have a packed room in fact a completely full room for a conversation with Rebecca and L indicates what extraor me times we do live in because there was a time not so recently when the comments of philosophers weren't seen as being so relevant to markets or even government and yet as an anthropologist myself I'm delighted to say that that has now changed people have woken up and realize that you cannot predict the future or hope to understand the present just by looking at numbers no matter how unbeliev unbelievably flashy your algorithms might seem and in fact regressive sound L wrote a terrific book a couple years ago called what money can't buy essentially it does what it says on the tin explains the moral limits of markets and all the reasons why building a society and a system purely on worship of markets worshipper numbers has its limit now this have become doubly relevant not just because of the financial crisis but because we are now living with if you like a moment of political revolution as well so I'd like to start by asking you not so much about finance but about the big question that everyone's asking you right now what about Trump I managed to get through a whole two minutes without mentioning drugs but here we go did you predict the Trump would win in the weeks leading up I thought he might I didn't trust the poll and I didn't predict those there was some market predictors either which no come on I got by good for dick Survivor I think not I think not I think what the the elite missed and continue to miss are the sources of the anger and resentment that has led to the populist upheavals in the US and Britain and in many other parts of the world I think that the elites assume that it's just about anger against immigration and trade and that at the heart of it is jobs and surely that's a part of it but it's also about even bigger things about the loss of community about disempowerment and about social esteem the sense that the work that ordinary people do is no longer honored and recognized let's go back here a bit because a lot of the conversations I've had in Washington in the last few months have been all about what it to do with rising inequality people you know bring out this chart showing what's happened to media incomes meaning comes you give these long arguments with different political camps some people say well actually haven't haven't anyone noticed that under Obama in the last couple of years income to drop sharply you know what are they complaining about you know I mean are you arguing with that basically misses the point it's not just about economics it's not just about economics inequality does matter but for moral and civic reasons not only for economic reasons there are two reasons to worry about inequality one the familiar reason is unfairness to those who lose out and that can be dealt with we debate various redistributed policies but there is another reason to worry about inequality and it's acidic reason when the gap between rich and poor becomes too great we find ourselves living separate lives and the public sphere loses its capacity to gather us together and to to enable us to be citizens engaged in a common project right I mean you actually say your conclusion of your book which I ever film author myself I know how important it is to promote the book so all of you with your webcams you can see the book what money can't buy that you say at the end at a time of rising inequality the marketization of everything means that people are affluent some people of modest means lead increasingly separate lives we live and work and shop and play in different places our children go to different schools you might call it and I think it's a great line the skyboxes vacation of American life it's not good for democracy well you think that is essentially what lies the heart of our current political are people of it yeah I bhakta vacation if you want me to explain scarbacks of the case yeah wonderful word I made off the bat pronounce it I had no idea how you translate that into French or German but anyway I think it goes back to Aristotle or something not really but skybox education it goes when I was a kid growing up I was a baseball fan and loved to go to baseball games and what in retrospect what I noticed I didn't notice it at the time was that going to a baseball game was a class mixing experience CEOs and mailroom clerks at my left side by side they were more expensive and less expensive seats but the difference wasn't as great and it was a community building experience and then came in skyboxes where there were corporate luxury VIP boxes where those on the top could watch the privilege could watch the game in isolation from the common folk in the scans below and this seems to me a metaphor for what's happened and in the passage you read throughout our social life the public schools are less and less a place that create a shared common citizenship where people from different walks of life in counter one another this seems to me the most corrosive effect of the growing inequality on social life and on democracy but even you could argue that what we're doing here in Davos is the ultimate corporate box the ultimate Skyblock publication not just of a sports match but of life well there is something to that and the question is what can we learn here and I think the lesson of the populist uprising has not yet really been learned and absorbed I think that what I think these are going to be troubled testing times for democracy these next few years but what worries me is not just a populist protest what worries me is that the mainstream parties in the elites and political leaders don't get it and by that you mean the mainstream Democrats the Labour Party the French and German so center-left parties to you degraded every - I think it goes across the political spectrum I think there is an exhaustion of political ideas and emptiness in the terms of public discourse what passes for public discourse these days is either partisan shouting matches ideological food fights on talk radio and cable television and on the floors of Congress or narrow managerial technocratic talk which inspires no one and the success of right-wing populism usually reflects the failure of liberal or progressive politics and I think that's true today it's a striking fact that the Democratic Party in the United States the Labour Party in Britain and Social Democratic parties throughout Europe have largely lost contact and credibility with the working-class and middle-class constituencies that traditionally were their base right well I won that very interesting because I went to both and Republican conventions this summer and the thing that really struck me was that you walked away from Republican convention the right-wing convention and you were crystal clear about the slogan make America great again short snappy and it has a verb it's about movement yeah very similar to take back control which was the brexit ears slogan again have a verb the Democrat by contrast were a complete mess of images they had two slogans one was I'm with her we sound like a boy band the other one was stronger together which is very static might as well call it I'm with a status quo yeah if you were employed by the Democrat today the center-left what would be your slogan how would you revitalize the center-left well I'm not sure I would begin with a slogan but I would say something about what the the snappiness of make America great again that struck you there there's something there is darkness at the edge of that slogan as there is darkness in the slogan take back our country yes that control come home and yet despite the darkness there is also a glimmer of a legitimate and important aspiration in both of those slogans that said a lot parties need to learn and take seriously and the aspiration the legitimate aspiration underlying those slogans has to do with a sense of national community the language of patriotism has been appropriated by the right for the most part there's no reason why center-left parties can't reclaim and articulate their own conception of national purpose and national community and shared identity and patriotism so that's one place I would start the nationalism is okay if you're on the left we'll all patriotism is okay there are versions in a Besant USA USA or you know Rule Britannia if you well I will not fall I wouldn't well I wouldn't encourage it depends on the settings in which those chants are in common and in many of the settings where we hear them there is a darkness at more than the edge sometimes right at the heart of the passions they stir but I think that one of the weaknesses of center-left parties has been in the face of pluralism and for the sake of toleration to try to insist on a kind of non-judgmental value free politics and that creates a moral vacuum of void that invariably will be filled by narrow intolerant moral isms so part of what I would call for and try to work out for the center-left parties is a morally more robust kind of public discourse than the kind to which were accustomed the technocratic impulse the economistic faith and the market faith began with Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan in the 80s but when they pass from the political theme and were succeeded by center-left parties in Britain in the u.s. in Germany the underlying premise of that market faith that markets are the primary instruments for defining and achieving the public good that state was never challenged they moderated but consolidated that market faith and we've not really had a debate since then about the proper role and reach of markets in civic life right so in French Gilligan would be there's more more to life and markets yes nobody nothing well more more to life than markets it's not only the economy stupid that would be another but that those are critical those are critical commentaries what remains to be done is to fill in the content and so one element of that content has to do with a sense of national purpose a sense of community but I think another ingredient that center-left parties need to address is the meaning in the future of work part of the anger and frustration those goes to social esteem a sense that the work that ordinary people do isn't valued and isn't rewarded and I think part of this is due to the wealth of the financialization of the economy over the last three or four decades when the social purpose of Finance is to direct the capital to socially useful purposes but when so much of financial activity ceases to have much connection with that basic purpose in the real economy and yet is lavishly rewarded it's very hard for ordinary people to believe politicians when they say is they constantly know reiterate people who work hard and play by the rules should be able to rise as far as their talents will take them people listen to that if this slogan is that the promise of a more perfect meritocracy it rings hollow and yet that's if there is a theme implicit in the conventions you attended the among progressive parties in the US in Britain and elsewhere is that to remove barriers to it to a freer more perfect meritocracy but there's Olli you call it meritocratic kubrick's you write a peaceful Guardian savvy regard you're not the SP but I'm sure we can change that in future the way you basically laid out a four-part plan for what you thought were the four key issues that the centre left if you like need to address any ones written for my mind you know we need to get granular what are the four things that they need to actually do and I need a party platform when they hire you well we've touched we've touched on to a sense of national community and purpose so how Chisholm is okay if it's directed to a shared common life restoring public places public institutions class mixing civic spaces the second one we've touched in on has to do with a serious debate about the future of work and the meaning of work and what confers dignity on work and in the relation between finance and the real economy that's that that's all part I think at the same question we found the other two I mean I'm very curious but as an anthropologist because one of the things economic anthropology is obvi for a long time is that work should not be something that just economists discuss right because it's anything other than just about economics yes exactly and work is a way of making a living we take that race for granted it's about generating an income but is that its only purpose or does it also confer meaning and identity and I think clearly the second is well but if that's true when people are thrown out of work and when the work that they do is not really valued and rewarded it's not only an economic issue it's not just a jobs issue as we narrowly conceived it it's an issue of meaning and identity and respect right and social esteem so those would be two that's activism talk about work well another you mentioned the meritocratic hubris that that I've spoken about and it's connected the more we believe that the animating purpose of our society is to enable the talented to get ahead and to remove barriers to advancement and the more we perfect that meritocratic project the more we're inclined to view our own success as our own doing is what we deserve and the effectiveness is insidious in subtle ways that accumulate and that I think we're witnessing now so those on top come to inhale deeply of their own success I'm here by dint of my own talents and efforts and that leads to a certain attitude toward those who are not at the top a tendency to look down with disdain and part of what we hear again and again in the close reporting of the populist anger in protest is a sense that the elites looked down with the stainless smugness and I think that ordinary ordinary citizens are not wrong to sense the smugness in to state it's inscribed almost in the animating implicit ideology or public purpose and also there's something deeply demoralizing about this picture about our relation to our success and moral desert if you wind up on the bottom because then you say you might say well the system is rigged it's unfair but you might also wonder maybe I'm maybe I don't look quite as I'd maybe I'm not quite as deserving as those folks on the top and when you believe both together that's a volatile oxic demoralizing brew and I think that's animated a lot of this anger so popular Patridge of them is okay or is community pride communities okay well to articulate a version of national community patriotism I think I looking for snappy slogan Stargirl well it's a lot of really not good at that work is good meritocratic hubris is wrong and the fourth one is about income inequality it's about income inequality and it's connected to the defect of the meritocratic ideal as an ideal of a just society in the following way well first we need to talk about inequality not only as a matter of fairness and distribution but also as a it's a corrosive having a corrosive effect on the civic project we've spoken about that but there's also the relation between inequality and mobility in the u.s. especially we've always told ourselves this is part most of the American Dream we don't need to worry about the inequality of income and wealth in the US as much as they do in Europe because here in America we tell ourselves you can rise you're not stuck at the place of your birth those class bound societies of Europe they worry about inequality because they have less mobility but this comforting story no longer fits the facts the ability to rise from one generation to the next in the u.s. is less not greater than it is in many European countries the US and Britain actually are pretty close on this near the bottom in terms of the ability to rise in the US if you're born in the bottom shift 43 percent will stay there and 70 percent won't even reach the middle 4 percent only will reach the top whereas in places like Denmark and Canada and Germany it's actually the rate of upward mobility is much greater so today equality and mobility go together because the further apart the rungs on the ladder become the harder it is to scramble up those rungs so the fourth theme that center-left parties need to think about and address creatively is are we going to consider that upward mobility it's an alternative to worrying about equality or do we need to think about both and do we need to think not only about mobility but also about creating a more equal society where the focus is not on the scramble to the top this connects to the meritocratic issue we were discussing because even if we could create a society where people rose according to their talents and effort meritocracy is not a way not an alternative to inequality it's an it's a justification for a certain kind of inequality and that was that even a perfect meritocracy with in some ways deepen rather than solve the problems of social esteem and community so I think broadly you this is not a slogan Jillian but it's a theme whether to be we should all be Danis well you could you could almost say that the American Dream is alive and well and living in Denmark that's a but but but here's if I could here is the theme that I think center-left parties should shift their emphasis from talking about mobility and perfecting individual opportunity and talk more about solidarity and community and what that means but one quite interesting detail that people in the audience may not know is that you grew up in Minnesota with Tom Friedman who is here in the audience who recently wrote another terrific book thank you being late which essentially argues that the secret of a good society lies not so much in Denmark but in Minnesota or at least in Minnesota 20 or 30 years ago where you actually did you didn't have a skybox education of life as you say later that imaging its own book you did have a sense of community darn cold so much the year but you had a sense of community do you think it's possible to go back to those homespun Midwestern Minnesotan values I mean trying to run a political campaign of let's all be Minnesotans it's probably not that punchy or may always punchy may not be that appealing but is that the answer I think there are very Minnesota generation there are there are elements there are values there are civic resources that are closely connected with that experience but I don't say I think it's important not to conceive the task of rejuvenating public discourse as a project in nostalgia it's a project that can learn from where we've come and I think it should begin by looking critically at the last four decades when market thinking and market reasoning and the financialization of the economy we've come to take them for granted so looking back 40 years or for that matter over the course of the history of democratic society that can inform moral and civic argument and how it might be rejuvenated not as an exercise in nostalgia but as a way of critically reflecting on the path we've taken and it's a way of reminding ourselves that it doesn't need to be so the laws of the market are not given by nature we have designed a certain version of global capitalism through political choices it's not like the weather that we have simply to adapt to we have made political choices we should reflect critically on the path we've taken and we need to listen this I think is the in a way the most fundamental piece of advice I would have for especially for progressive parties we need elites need to do a better job of listening to the anger the discontent the frustrations the resentment even when they take sometimes ugly odious form because there is something to learn there is embedded in those frustrations there are legitimate grievances and genuine aspirations that we have not successfully addressed for well quite some time for several decades at least have you ever been to a trump rally you know would you like to go to one are you inviting me let's go together an apologist and philosopher you go together to a trump rally and I have actually and I've spent quite loved the last year then trying to be a one-on-one anthropologist in two different parts of America yes and frankly that journey have reminded me of how easy it is to insulate yourself me but I'm curious if the left doesn't listen and doesn't take on board what your face yes and doesn't formulate snappy slogans doesn't find a way to connect to listen doesn't adopt the spore part plan right what happens well first I wouldn't describe it as a four-part plan I know you want snappiness charlie sorry I'm a journalist I think my headlines in Berlin I would I would describe it as four esteems a guy full being blasted that should inform the the mission and purpose the rejuvenation of public discourse right my progressive parties what will happen if did he get real dystopian demagogue so the next two decades well I think what will happen is here's how I would think about it people want public life to be about big things including shared purposes and meanings and sources of identity and when for a stretch of time mainstream parties and progressive parties don't offer that don't speak to those larger questions including questions of values but instead talk a technocratic language that creates a moral void and what happens and we're seeing it already is the default way of filling the emptiness of meaning in public discourse is a kind of strident nationalism that's the default source of meaning that will infiltrate and infect public discourse in global politics and it's corrosive ultimately of rural ism and democracy yes sander left parties don't find a constructive way of coming up with moving beyond technocratic talk the dressing values big questions about justice equality and inequality what it means to be a citizen a language of the common good in the absence of that that void will be filled it's already being filled in democracies and also in undemocratic countries a void of meaning is being filled in different ways in different parts of the world by a strident nationalism that's the default source of meaning and it's dangerous so in some ways we are sliding backwards 9030 well there there are elements of that there are elements of that under different conditions and the challenge is to find is not to flee from a politics that addresses common purposes national purposes and aspirations and moral questions even its to try to find our way to a morally more robust public discourse than the kind to which were a custom that I think is the only way of rejuvenating democratic public life we have that woman at left on the puris any leaders on the little state a day do you see any of them doing that capable of doing that on the middle mood to send alert know Barack Obama in 2008 seemed to be someone who was able to touch morale and to connect moral and spiritual concerns to politics but he wasn't able to translate that into governing and and I think I'd have to do with the way he responded to the 2008 financial crisis in the bailout which generated the anger and resentment which he play kated rather than articulated and that unaddressed anger said on the left it said the Occupy movement and then the Bernie Sanders campaign and on the right it said the Tea Party movement and Donald Trump right well I don't want to end on a download making a fascinating conversation so instead I'm going to put the end with a quarter arms who in the room would regard themselves as being center or center left I mean yes quite a lot of you well I submit end by saying we don't often turn to philosophers for political slogans I'm not sure we've quite one today seems Gillian national dragons but I think Logan's those of you who do come for the central and center-left you now have your marching orders thank you thank you thank you

Channel: World Economic Forum

Views: 82,732

Keywords: world economic forum, WEF, Davos, Davos 2017

Id: WMafVnxchxc

Length: 30min 43sec (1843 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 18 2017