about what we all believe makes us
prosperous makes us economically
well-off and when I say prosperous I
don’t mean what is it that’s driven us
into the top 1% of the world’s income
distribution that’s made us wealthy
investment bankers all I mean is what is
it that’s made us not sick miserable
starving diseased
lying in the gutter in some destitute
village somewhere and when I say all of
us I don’t mean individually of each of
us I mean all of us as a society what is
it about the societies that some of us
live in they have allowed us to become
as the language says dignified agents of
our own destiny that’s what we are as
long as we’re not scrambling to get
enough food to get us through the end of
the day we are dignified agents of our
own destiny what is it that’s made other
societies fail to achieve this now for
some of us especially sitting here in
this audience
the answer is transparent it is a strong
responsible enlightened state it is a
state that has built highways and
bridges where none stood before it is a
state that has cleared unhealthy
marshland and swamp so that we can live
fulfilling lives in the state that’s
crafted a system of law and order that
we are not plundered and expropriated is
it’s a state that’s provided universal
education that the young people in
society can eventually become productive
can lead meaningful decent lives
is the state that’s provided a stability
that all of us can feel secure in that
we can then think about safe and invest
for the future is the state that we
might think describes what we see here
in Singapore or in the telling of some
is the state like that that we see in
China a description of that is that that
society has achieved the kind of
enlightened collective action where the
state then provides an infrastructure of
public goods this is one story that
answers the original question there’s
another story that’s different from that
this other story begins with big simple
ideas rugged individualism individual
empowerment personal freedoms unbounded
liberties and according to this
alternative view it is not the state
there has allowed us to become dignified
agents of our own destiny what happens
is that societies need to unleash the
force of creative destruction it needs
to unleash all manner of individual
freedoms that will then magically
through some peculiar workings of a
fundamental theorem allow that society
then to achieve all the good things that
societies should enjoy now this is the
liberal promise that societies can
achieve this through unleashing personal
freedoms this liberal promise goes by
different names I lived for decades in
the United States and Great Britain and
there along with the transatlantic axis
the way writers described this we had
reached the endpoint of humanity’s
ideological Eve
Ellucian that the systems of liberal
democracy and individual freedoms that
we got to enjoy were the only coherent
political culture that spanned regions
and ideologies and societies across the
globe on the other side from this of
course are the strong state economies
now of course sensible people would say
no one would choose social repression
over individual empowerment no one would
choose enslavement over liberty why is
it that across the world these opposing
views on the one hand and lightened
collective action of the kind that we
see in Singapore in China and other
parts of Asia and other parts of
successful Asia on the one hand versus
the kind of liberal promise that we see
elsewhere in the world see the liberal
promise does not just say that if you
unleash creative destruction individual
liberties you achieve these wonderful
things it says that it is the only way
you can do that and in all other systems
with the strong responsible enlightened
state no matter how responsible and
enlightened
eventually they become corrupt
eventually those states produce only
extractive elites that plunder the rest
of society those things eventually
produce a rapacious structure that
exploits their people so we sit here
with two different views about how we
run the world one place that exemplifies
the success of this model of individual
freedoms is of course the United States
America has been so successful it is the
land where rugged individualism
it is the land where personal liberties
allow societies to be entrepreneurial it
has produced the most amazing
technological toys that the rest of us
gets to enjoy it is unrivaled militarily
economically politically even if China
today is already the world’s second
largest economy China like the rest of
these non liberal promised states are
bound to fail
America has a good story America has
such a good story you and I and the rest
of the world have made America our
custodian the world’s Guardian America
has an amazing story all the rest of us
want to go to America to have this
American Dream be our own as well we
study hard we work hard we fill out
forms some of us go to the extent of
marrying American citizens just so we
can get to America and lift that dream
America has that wonderful story and
that’s why no matter how successful
China is this picture is not yet a
reality it is still a joke that’s the
world that we live in that’s the world
that we you and I need to think about an
idea to be reflected on and to act on if
we want to continue to be prosperous and
economically well-off there’s a problem
with the picture that I’ve just drawn
here America is indeed this wonderful
cradle on the transatlantic axis of tech
anomic and political success but is it
true that the rest of the world in this
narrative has failed
here are four reasons I want to suggest
to you this morning that the liberal
promise doesn’t carry the whole story
these four reasons are first the big
what’s happening in China and Asia
second the small what’s happening in
Singapore both of these examples are
examples who has strong responsible
enlightened states provide the
counterpoint to the liberal promise
what’s happening in the big and the
small then I want to tell you about the
hundreds of other countries out there
that don’t fit the model along the
transatlantic axis and then finally I
want to tell you about political
legitimacy so let’s walk through these
the rise of China all of us know has
been the success story of the last half
century how important has that actually
been bankers policymakers international
politicians like to talk about the
world’s center of gravity that the world
center of gravity of course sits on the
transatlantic axis where the liberal
promise was born and where continuous
and full fruition so I calculated the
world’s center of gravity
according to economics this is a picture
that illustrates that it shows that yes
exactly as the liberal promise suggests
for decades the world’s economic center
set firmly in the middle of the Atlantic
Ocean it set firmly on the transatlantic
axis where the liberal promise was
powerful but then something very
peculiar has happened in the last 35
years in the last 35 years this was the
economic center of gravity has started
to pull away from his traditional
moorings in the last 35 years the
world’s economic center of gravity moved
5,000 kilometers three-quarters of the
Earth’s radius across the surface of a
planet eastwards towards us driven by
the rise of China the rise of the rest
of Asia and its continuing if this
dynamic continues within our lifetime
yours and mine the world’s economic
center will no longer sit on the
transatlantic axis the cradle of the
liberal promise instead it will sit here
in GMT plus 8 on the boundary between
India and China but
wait isn’t this just a function of sites
isn’t this just how China has 1.3
billion people so of course when it does
something it shakes the world it changes
the world’s economic center well that’s
not the only thing that happens because
this is happening also in the very small
Singapore to is a state that does not
quite qualify under the liberal promise
and yet for the last five years
Singapore’s per capita income has
exceeded that of the United States this
tiny nation state where when we began we
talked about the responsible state
clearing unhealthy swamps that actually
happened here and it’s gotten us to a
point where today Singapore on an
average per capita GDP basis is richer
than the United States and this is
happening not just in the Singapore’s
and the China’s of the world the
emerging nations in the world number in
the hundreds all of them sitting outside
the transatlantic access none of them
fit the standard model of the liberal
promise all of them are experimenting
with different varieties of political
states and capitalist markets all of
them are trying out different things and
here’s what they did for most of the
20th century through the 1980s the 1990s
all of these hundreds of emerging
nations when you add together their
incomes they came up to less than a
third of what the world’s seven richest
countries basically along the
transatlantic axis plus Japan what the
g7 made but something very remarkable
happened in the last 15 years last 15
years that gap has gone away the
emerging economies have caught up the
cradle that is the liberal promise no
longer carries the only stamp of
economic success in the world the only
sustained the only sustained stamp of
economic success the fourth thing I
wanted to say is political legitimacy
the transatlantic access in carrying
forward the liberal promise has
in the world’s Guardian it has told the
rest of us how to live our lives let’s
apply that principle of liberal
democracy to the entire world suppose we
asked the world to vote what it would
like where’s the world’s greatest
concentration of a simple Democratic
majority well I did that calculation I
went and I mapped 100 kilometers square
chunks of land on our planet and I found
out where everybody lives on this planet
you I’ve got my eye on you and I napped
this into the smallest circle that
encompasses 50% of the world’s
population and guess what that circle is
centered in monk at Eastern yang ma it’s
a circle 3300 kilometers in radius is a
tiny circle that covers only 1/6 of the
world’s land area and it is here in this
maelstrom of different cultures of Asian
values that the world’s simple
Democratic majority sits and the world
were ever put to of if it ever system
global system never came to a vote and
we asked what should the world look like
it is this that should determine the
future of the world let me finish
I began by telling you about the liberal
promise and it would be somebody crazy
to suggest that one should prefer things
over what the liberal promise gives us
who would choose social repression over
individual freedoms who would choose
enslavement over liberty but what’s
happened in the world is that nations
fine they need to experiment with all
kinds of different political and
economic systems the world is not simple
and linear the opposite of the liberal
promise is not authoritarian
dictatorship it is an enlightened
collective action and in the actions
that Asia has undertaken over the last
35 years we have revealed that it takes
all kinds of melting pot mixtures of
political and economic
is to succeed let me conclude my call to
action is this don’t be afraid be
pragmatic do the highwire acrobatics
that’s needed for political and economic
development do it without the safety net
and the security blanket that the
liberal promise provides the liberal
promise believes that it is the only way
that societies can develop that liberal
promise statement is also the liberal
delusion don’t be afraid thank you very
much
[Applause] [Music]