[Music]
in his wonderful book the economic
consequences of the peace john maynard
keynes sums up an image of a
middle-class civilized Londoner just
before the first world war
he’s lying in bed reading his morning
times sipping his tea and using this
newfangled device the telephone to order
commodities from all over the world
he’s absolutely certain that those
commodities will arrive on his doorstep
in the next few days he’s using this
newfangled device to make investments in
stocks and shares in companies that
operate all around the world
he’s absolutely confident that he’ll
make money from those investments and
Cain says that this Londoner is certain
that the world will go on becoming more
cosmopolitan more integrated more global
and he’s absolutely blind to the forces
of nationalism tribalism and
protectionism that are about to
transform that world the global elite
over the last twenty years has been
rather like Keynes’s Londoner we’ve been
lying in our collective bed sipping our
collective tea reading our collective
google google and we’ve been making our
investments we’ve been pressing our mark
smartphones we’ve been expecting our
commodities to arrive from Amazon on our
doorstep the next day and we have
collectively been absolutely blind to
the forces of tribalism nationalism and
xenophobia which are currently
transforming our world now Keynes’s
londoners world was transformed by the
first world war the first world war
divided the world into warring murderous
tribes after the first world war
you got economic crisis economic crisis
led to protectionism protectionism led
to depression after the war you got the
rise of Hitler which led inexorably to
the Second World War
you got the rise of Stalin which led to
the division of the world into warring
ideological camps now after the Second
World War we ground
he began to reconstruct the world of
global integration from 1945 to the
financial crisis the world became more
integrated you had a more ambitious more
hubristic notion of globalization
constantly pushing the world together
but I think what happened with the
financial crisis was this period of
globalization began to come to an end
now I believe that globalization will
continue in the sense that companies
will continue to trade across borders
wherever they can
but globalization is an ideological
project driven by policymakers who
constantly want to lower borders cheered
by ideal ideologues and intellectuals
who say that globalization will produce
a more integrated more liberal more
peaceful world that globalization is
beginning to dissolve before our eyes
the great era of globalization depended
on the United States being involved with
the world
after the Second World War the United
States took the lead in pushing for free
trade in pushing for NATO in pushing for
a global architecture of security but
after the first world war the United
States did none of those things it
retreated from the world and that’s why
you’ve got the depression that’s why
you’ve got protectionism that’s why
you’ve got the rise of these monsters
across the world I think we’re moving
back to the attitude of the United
States after the first world war rather
than after the Second World War
secondly globalization depended on the U
the European Union advancing sucking in
more members that process has reached
its limits and is beginning with brexit
to reverse the European Union is
essentially now reached its limits
essentially paralyzed what’s gone wrong
I think what’s gone wrong essentially is
that the globalizers over-promised and
under-delivered they promised that
globalization would produce a world of
obvious benefits for everybody a more
prosperous and more stable a more
pleasant world well they said that of
course they’ll be disruption of course
there’ll be difficulties of course
people will have to change and adjust to
that world but overwhelmingly you
see improvements in your life this
clearly happened in the emerging world I
was in June Dow not that long ago a city
I’ve hardly ever heard of everybody
there seemed prosperous there were brand
new cars the skyscrapers people had jobs
there was a great sense of optimism
everybody was looking forward to the
future that’s a wonderful thing but if
you leave that world the emerging world
and look at the rich world what do you
see you see that America’s standard of
living has stagnated the average
American has seen their standard of
living stagnating for the last 20 years
I recently went to Wolverhampton the
exact opposite of Jing Dao a world where
people have seen their lives broken by
the industrialization a world where
people do not have hope for the future
and the worrying thing to me is that in
this period of hyperglobalisation
productivity growth has actually been
much slower than it was from 1945 to
about 1970 when you had a much more
controlled version of globalization so
we were promised an acceleration in
growth and what we’ve seen in the rich
world at least productivity growth
beginning to stagnate a great stagnation
the globalized has promised that there
would be a sort of platonic Guardian
class they said well of course we’ll
have turbulence of course we’ll have
capital movements of course we’ll have
hot money running around the world but
we understand the science of economics
we can control these things we’ll give
you the Great Moderation will end the
boom-bust cycle we can control
globalization will unleash this force
it’ll make you richer and we can control
it well that argument was blown away by
the global financial crisis which was
testimony to extremely poor financial
management so things are not going well
the globalizers promised as well that
all good things would tend to go
together you wouldn’t just get global
markets advancing you get democracy
advancing you wouldn’t just get global
markets and democracy advanced that you
get liberal values advancing everything
would go together there was a lot of
talk about how democracies never go to
war with each other
there was even hat talk about how to
countries where the McDonnells will
never go to war with each
that’s how silly things became this
hasn’t happened we haven’t had this
triumph of global liberal values we’ve
had an alternative model of
globalization which is authoritarian
globalization with people at Putin
people bit people a lot like Turk
countries like Turkey which are based on
the idea of authoritarian illiberal
globalization authoritarian illiberal
global global capitalism as an
alternative to the liberal West one of
the great debates in the 1990s was
between Francis Fukuyama and his
argument about the end of history and
Samuel Huntington who talked about the
clash of civilizations well what we’ve
seen is Huntington win that argument
absolutely dramatically globalization
has not killed nationalism is not killed
xenophobia quite often it’s unleashed it
and made it even worse and the very
people the very people who are making
these hubristic arguments have actually
engaged in a massive process of self
dealing they’ve done exceptionally well
out of this process of globalization at
a time when we’ve seen economic
stagnation the global elite has got
richer and richer and richer and made
out like bandits we’ve seen politicians
in the revolving door going from running
regulated Latorre bodies operating in
Parliament to working for these global
companies we’ve seen global companies
great marvelous global companies that
claim to be doing good in the world
concealing money from tax that the tax
system engaging in the most
extraordinary process of lobbying
rigging the system hiding their profits
we’ve seen a global elite elite
preaching the virtues of globalization
but instead acting as sort of crony
capitalists crony globalists and I think
something else has gone on at this time
globalization offers a very difficult
world it’s up roots people’s lives it
challenges their cultures but what does
it offer in return I haven’t seen any
great depth the astonishing thing about
globalization is how shallow it’s quite
often being how shallow it’s offering
has been so if you look back to the
great age of liberal
lism in the 19th century who had an
extrordinary flowering of culture you
had Balzac you had bait oh you had great
artists what have we had during the era
of hyperglobalisation airport lounges
management textbooks it’s been an
extremely disappointing era from that
perspective but above all what
globalization or hyper globalization is
done is to unleash its opposite its
unleashed a very ugly
form of nationalism
so confronted with broken promises
confronted with stagnant economies
confronted with crony –is– global
elites that look after each other the
masses people are beginning to turn to
the worst sorts of snake oil salesmen
they’re turning to people who say well
the best alternative to hyper
globalization is ethnic nationalism the
best alternative to doing too much to
push freedom of movement of people and
ideas is protectionism and managed
economy from the top so I think the
great challenge of liberals over the
next few years is to save globalization
by reforming it this will involve a
great deal more humility on the part of
liberals it will involve a willingness
to compromise about fundamental things
or things that they thought were
fundamental and I think the free
movement of people might well be part of
that I think the insistence by the
European Union that the free movement of
people is absolutely undebatable is may
well be going much too far it will be it
will involve a willingness to recognize
that nationalism has a bright side as
well as a dark side we need to rescue
the good side of nationalism in order to
prevent the triumph of the bad side of
nationalism it will involve a sort of
humility on the part of people we’ve
seen over the last L on the part of
globalist we’ve seen over the era of
triumphant globalism a sort of bourgeois
triumphalism the sort of notion where
right everybody who doesn’t agree with
us is wrong anybody who doesn’t agree
with our values about
free trade free movement across borders
gender fluidity and the rest of it must
be some stump toothed bigoted
nationalists and we need to demonize
them and write them out of the script
and this is coming from people who’ve
mismanaged this process and have made
themselves rich in the process of
globalization and I think above all we
need to have a war against self dealing
against global cronyism we need to stop
this door from revolving we need to stop
these tax havens from being created to
save companies from from paying any
taxes so the price of failure the price
of failure from this process will be an
ugly world of nationalism and xenophobia
and the people who will be responsible
for creating this ugly world will be
just as much overreaching globalists as
they are tub-thumping nationalists thank
you
[Applause]
you
in his wonderful book the economic
consequences of the peace john maynard
keynes sums up an image of a
middle-class civilized Londoner just
before the first world war
he’s lying in bed reading his morning
times sipping his tea and using this
newfangled device the telephone to order
commodities from all over the world
he’s absolutely certain that those
commodities will arrive on his doorstep
in the next few days he’s using this
newfangled device to make investments in
stocks and shares in companies that
operate all around the world
he’s absolutely confident that he’ll
make money from those investments and
Cain says that this Londoner is certain
that the world will go on becoming more
cosmopolitan more integrated more global
and he’s absolutely blind to the forces
of nationalism tribalism and
protectionism that are about to
transform that world the global elite
over the last twenty years has been
rather like Keynes’s Londoner we’ve been
lying in our collective bed sipping our
collective tea reading our collective
google google and we’ve been making our
investments we’ve been pressing our mark
smartphones we’ve been expecting our
commodities to arrive from Amazon on our
doorstep the next day and we have
collectively been absolutely blind to
the forces of tribalism nationalism and
xenophobia which are currently
transforming our world now Keynes’s
londoners world was transformed by the
first world war the first world war
divided the world into warring murderous
tribes after the first world war
you got economic crisis economic crisis
led to protectionism protectionism led
to depression after the war you got the
rise of Hitler which led inexorably to
the Second World War
you got the rise of Stalin which led to
the division of the world into warring
ideological camps now after the Second
World War we ground
he began to reconstruct the world of
global integration from 1945 to the
financial crisis the world became more
integrated you had a more ambitious more
hubristic notion of globalization
constantly pushing the world together
but I think what happened with the
financial crisis was this period of
globalization began to come to an end
now I believe that globalization will
continue in the sense that companies
will continue to trade across borders
wherever they can
but globalization is an ideological
project driven by policymakers who
constantly want to lower borders cheered
by ideal ideologues and intellectuals
who say that globalization will produce
a more integrated more liberal more
peaceful world that globalization is
beginning to dissolve before our eyes
the great era of globalization depended
on the United States being involved with
the world
after the Second World War the United
States took the lead in pushing for free
trade in pushing for NATO in pushing for
a global architecture of security but
after the first world war the United
States did none of those things it
retreated from the world and that’s why
you’ve got the depression that’s why
you’ve got protectionism that’s why
you’ve got the rise of these monsters
across the world I think we’re moving
back to the attitude of the United
States after the first world war rather
than after the Second World War
secondly globalization depended on the U
the European Union advancing sucking in
more members that process has reached
its limits and is beginning with brexit
to reverse the European Union is
essentially now reached its limits
essentially paralyzed what’s gone wrong
I think what’s gone wrong essentially is
that the globalizers over-promised and
under-delivered they promised that
globalization would produce a world of
obvious benefits for everybody a more
prosperous and more stable a more
pleasant world well they said that of
course they’ll be disruption of course
there’ll be difficulties of course
people will have to change and adjust to
that world but overwhelmingly you
see improvements in your life this
clearly happened in the emerging world I
was in June Dow not that long ago a city
I’ve hardly ever heard of everybody
there seemed prosperous there were brand
new cars the skyscrapers people had jobs
there was a great sense of optimism
everybody was looking forward to the
future that’s a wonderful thing but if
you leave that world the emerging world
and look at the rich world what do you
see you see that America’s standard of
living has stagnated the average
American has seen their standard of
living stagnating for the last 20 years
I recently went to Wolverhampton the
exact opposite of Jing Dao a world where
people have seen their lives broken by
the industrialization a world where
people do not have hope for the future
and the worrying thing to me is that in
this period of hyperglobalisation
productivity growth has actually been
much slower than it was from 1945 to
about 1970 when you had a much more
controlled version of globalization so
we were promised an acceleration in
growth and what we’ve seen in the rich
world at least productivity growth
beginning to stagnate a great stagnation
the globalized has promised that there
would be a sort of platonic Guardian
class they said well of course we’ll
have turbulence of course we’ll have
capital movements of course we’ll have
hot money running around the world but
we understand the science of economics
we can control these things we’ll give
you the Great Moderation will end the
boom-bust cycle we can control
globalization will unleash this force
it’ll make you richer and we can control
it well that argument was blown away by
the global financial crisis which was
testimony to extremely poor financial
management so things are not going well
the globalizers promised as well that
all good things would tend to go
together you wouldn’t just get global
markets advancing you get democracy
advancing you wouldn’t just get global
markets and democracy advanced that you
get liberal values advancing everything
would go together there was a lot of
talk about how democracies never go to
war with each other
there was even hat talk about how to
countries where the McDonnells will
never go to war with each
that’s how silly things became this
hasn’t happened we haven’t had this
triumph of global liberal values we’ve
had an alternative model of
globalization which is authoritarian
globalization with people at Putin
people bit people a lot like Turk
countries like Turkey which are based on
the idea of authoritarian illiberal
globalization authoritarian illiberal
global global capitalism as an
alternative to the liberal West one of
the great debates in the 1990s was
between Francis Fukuyama and his
argument about the end of history and
Samuel Huntington who talked about the
clash of civilizations well what we’ve
seen is Huntington win that argument
absolutely dramatically globalization
has not killed nationalism is not killed
xenophobia quite often it’s unleashed it
and made it even worse and the very
people the very people who are making
these hubristic arguments have actually
engaged in a massive process of self
dealing they’ve done exceptionally well
out of this process of globalization at
a time when we’ve seen economic
stagnation the global elite has got
richer and richer and richer and made
out like bandits we’ve seen politicians
in the revolving door going from running
regulated Latorre bodies operating in
Parliament to working for these global
companies we’ve seen global companies
great marvelous global companies that
claim to be doing good in the world
concealing money from tax that the tax
system engaging in the most
extraordinary process of lobbying
rigging the system hiding their profits
we’ve seen a global elite elite
preaching the virtues of globalization
but instead acting as sort of crony
capitalists crony globalists and I think
something else has gone on at this time
globalization offers a very difficult
world it’s up roots people’s lives it
challenges their cultures but what does
it offer in return I haven’t seen any
great depth the astonishing thing about
globalization is how shallow it’s quite
often being how shallow it’s offering
has been so if you look back to the
great age of liberal
lism in the 19th century who had an
extrordinary flowering of culture you
had Balzac you had bait oh you had great
artists what have we had during the era
of hyperglobalisation airport lounges
management textbooks it’s been an
extremely disappointing era from that
perspective but above all what
globalization or hyper globalization is
done is to unleash its opposite its
unleashed a very ugly
form of nationalism
so confronted with broken promises
confronted with stagnant economies
confronted with crony –is– global
elites that look after each other the
masses people are beginning to turn to
the worst sorts of snake oil salesmen
they’re turning to people who say well
the best alternative to hyper
globalization is ethnic nationalism the
best alternative to doing too much to
push freedom of movement of people and
ideas is protectionism and managed
economy from the top so I think the
great challenge of liberals over the
next few years is to save globalization
by reforming it this will involve a
great deal more humility on the part of
liberals it will involve a willingness
to compromise about fundamental things
or things that they thought were
fundamental and I think the free
movement of people might well be part of
that I think the insistence by the
European Union that the free movement of
people is absolutely undebatable is may
well be going much too far it will be it
will involve a willingness to recognize
that nationalism has a bright side as
well as a dark side we need to rescue
the good side of nationalism in order to
prevent the triumph of the bad side of
nationalism it will involve a sort of
humility on the part of people we’ve
seen over the last L on the part of
globalist we’ve seen over the era of
triumphant globalism a sort of bourgeois
triumphalism the sort of notion where
right everybody who doesn’t agree with
us is wrong anybody who doesn’t agree
with our values about
free trade free movement across borders
gender fluidity and the rest of it must
be some stump toothed bigoted
nationalists and we need to demonize
them and write them out of the script
and this is coming from people who’ve
mismanaged this process and have made
themselves rich in the process of
globalization and I think above all we
need to have a war against self dealing
against global cronyism we need to stop
this door from revolving we need to stop
these tax havens from being created to
save companies from from paying any
taxes so the price of failure the price
of failure from this process will be an
ugly world of nationalism and xenophobia
and the people who will be responsible
for creating this ugly world will be
just as much overreaching globalists as
they are tub-thumping nationalists thank
you
[Applause]
you
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