| Recorded at | August 06, 2014 |
|---|---|
| Event | TEDSalon NY2014 |
| Duration (min:sec) | 20:12 |
| Video Type | TED Stage Talk |
| Words per minute | 147.75 very slow |
| Readability (FK) | 40.64 very difficult |
| Speaker | Nick Hanauer |
| Country | United States |
| Occupation | entrepreneur |
| Description | American businessman |
Official TED page for this talk
Synopsis
Nick Hanauer is a rich guy, an unrepentant capitalist — and he has something to say to his fellow plutocrats: Wake up! Growing inequality is about to push our societies into conditions resembling pre-revolutionary France. Hear his argument about why a dramatic increase in minimum wage could grow the middle class, deliver economic prosperity ... and prevent a revolution.
| 1 | 00:03 | You probably don't know me, | ||
| 2 | 00:05 | but I am one of those .01 percenters | ||
| 3 | 00:09 | that you hear about and read about, | ||
| 4 | 00:11 | and I am by any reasonable definition a plutocrat. | ||
| 5 | 00:15 | And tonight, what I would like to do is speak directly | ||
| 6 | 00:18 | to other plutocrats, to my people, | ||
| 7 | 00:20 | because it feels like it's time for us all | ||
| 8 | 00:23 | to have a chat. | ||
| 9 | 00:25 | Like most plutocrats, I too am a proud | ||
| 10 | 00:27 | and unapologetic capitalist. | ||
| 11 | 00:30 | I have founded, cofounded or funded | ||
| 12 | 00:33 | over 30 companies across a range of industries. | ||
| 13 | 00:37 | I was the first non-family investor in Amazon.com. | ||
| 14 | 00:41 | I cofounded a company called aQuantive | ||
| 15 | 00:43 | that we sold to Microsoft for 6.4 billion dollars. | ||
| 16 | 00:47 | My friends and I, we own a bank. | ||
| 17 | 00:50 | I tell you this — (Laughter) — | ||
| 18 | 00:53 | unbelievable, right? | ||
| 19 | 00:54 | I tell you this to show | ||
| 20 | 00:57 | that my life is like most plutocrats. | ||
| 21 | 01:00 | I have a broad perspective on capitalism | ||
| 22 | 01:03 | and business, | ||
| 23 | 01:05 | and I have been rewarded obscenely for that | ||
| 24 | 01:09 | with a life that most of you all | ||
| 25 | 01:11 | can't even imagine: | ||
| 26 | 01:13 | multiple homes, a yacht, my own plane, | ||
| 27 | 01:16 | etc., etc., etc. | ||
| 28 | 01:20 | But let's be honest: I am not the smartest person you've ever met. | ||
| 29 | 01:23 | I am certainly not the hardest working. | ||
| 30 | 01:26 | I was a mediocre student. | ||
| 31 | 01:28 | I'm not technical at all. | ||
| 32 | 01:29 | I can't write a word of code. | ||
| 33 | 01:31 | Truly, my success is the consequence | ||
| 34 | 01:34 | of spectacular luck, | ||
| 35 | 01:37 | of birth, of circumstance and of timing. | ||
| 36 | 01:42 | But I am actually pretty good at a couple of things. | ||
| 37 | 01:46 | One, I have an unusually high tolerance for risk, | ||
| 38 | 01:51 | and the other is I have a good sense, | ||
| 39 | 01:53 | a good intuition about what will happen in the future, | ||
| 40 | 01:56 | and I think that that intuition about the future | ||
| 41 | 01:59 | is the essence of good entrepreneurship. | ||
| 42 | 02:03 | So what do I see in our future today, | ||
| 43 | 02:05 | you ask? | ||
| 44 | 02:07 | I see pitchforks, | ||
| 45 | 02:09 | as in angry mobs with pitchforks, | ||
| 46 | 02:14 | because while people like us plutocrats | ||
| 47 | 02:19 | are living beyond the dreams of avarice, | ||
| 48 | 02:22 | the other 99 percent of our fellow citizens | ||
| 49 | 02:25 | are falling farther and farther behind. | ||
| 50 | 02:28 | In 1980, the top one percent of Americans | ||
| 51 | 02:31 | shared about eight percent of national [income], | ||
| 52 | 02:33 | while the bottom 50 percent of Americans | ||
| 53 | 02:36 | shared 18 percent. | ||
| 54 | 02:38 | Thirty years later, today, the top one percent | ||
| 55 | 02:42 | shares over 20 percent of national [income], | ||
| 56 | 02:45 | while the bottom 50 percent of Americans | ||
| 57 | 02:47 | share 12 or 13. | ||
| 58 | 02:50 | If the trend continues, | ||
| 59 | 02:53 | the top one percent will share | ||
| 60 | 02:54 | over 30 percent of national [income] | ||
| 61 | 02:56 | in another 30 years, | ||
| 62 | 02:58 | while the bottom 50 percent of Americans | ||
| 63 | 03:00 | will share just six. | ||
| 64 | 03:02 | You see, the problem isn't that we have | ||
| 65 | 03:04 | some inequality. | ||
| 66 | 03:06 | Some inequality is necessary | ||
| 67 | 03:09 | for a high-functioning capitalist democracy. | ||
| 68 | 03:12 | The problem is that inequality | ||
| 69 | 03:14 | is at historic highs today | ||
| 70 | 03:17 | and it's getting worse every day. | ||
| 71 | 03:21 | And if wealth, power, and income | ||
| 72 | 03:23 | continue to concentrate | ||
| 73 | 03:25 | at the very tippy top, | ||
| 74 | 03:27 | our society will change | ||
| 75 | 03:29 | from a capitalist democracy | ||
| 76 | 03:31 | to a neo-feudalist rentier society | ||
| 77 | 03:35 | like 18th-century France. | ||
| 78 | 03:37 | That was France | ||
| 79 | 03:40 | before the revolution | ||
| 80 | 03:42 | and the mobs with the pitchforks. | ||
| 81 | 03:44 | So I have a message for my fellow plutocrats | ||
| 82 | 03:46 | and zillionaires | ||
| 83 | 03:48 | and for anyone who lives | ||
| 84 | 03:49 | in a gated bubble world: | ||
| 85 | 03:52 | Wake up. | ||
| 86 | 03:53 | Wake up. It cannot last. | ||
| 87 | 03:57 | Because if we do not do something | ||
| 88 | 03:59 | to fix the glaring economic inequities in our society, | ||
| 89 | 04:03 | the pitchforks will come for us, | ||
| 90 | 04:06 | for no free and open society can long sustain | ||
| 91 | 04:10 | this kind of rising economic inequality. | ||
| 92 | 04:13 | It has never happened. There are no examples. | ||
| 93 | 04:16 | You show me a highly unequal society, | ||
| 94 | 04:18 | and I will show you a police state | ||
| 95 | 04:19 | or an uprising. | ||
| 96 | 04:21 | The pitchforks will come for us | ||
| 97 | 04:23 | if we do not address this. | ||
| 98 | 04:25 | It's not a matter of if, it's when. | ||
| 99 | 04:29 | And it will be terrible when they come | ||
| 100 | 04:32 | for everyone, | ||
| 101 | 04:34 | but particularly for people like us plutocrats. | ||
| 102 | 04:39 | I know I must sound like some liberal do-gooder. | ||
| 103 | 04:42 | I'm not. I'm not making a moral argument | ||
| 104 | 04:44 | that economic inequality is wrong. | ||
| 105 | 04:48 | What I am arguing is that rising economic inequality | ||
| 106 | 04:52 | is stupid and ultimately self-defeating. | ||
| 107 | 04:56 | Rising inequality doesn't just increase our risks | ||
| 108 | 04:59 | from pitchforks, | ||
| 109 | 05:01 | but it's also terrible for business too. | ||
| 110 | 05:05 | So the model for us rich guys should be Henry Ford. | ||
| 111 | 05:09 | When Ford famously introduced the $5 day, | ||
| 112 | 05:13 | which was twice the prevailing wage at the time, | ||
| 113 | 05:16 | he didn't just increase the productivity | ||
| 114 | 05:18 | of his factories, | ||
| 115 | 05:20 | he converted exploited autoworkers who were poor | ||
| 116 | 05:23 | into a thriving middle class who could now afford | ||
| 117 | 05:26 | to buy the products that they made. | ||
| 118 | 05:29 | Ford intuited what we now know is true, | ||
| 119 | 05:33 | that an economy is best understood as an ecosystem | ||
| 120 | 05:37 | and characterized by the same kinds | ||
| 121 | 05:39 | of feedback loops you find | ||
| 122 | 05:42 | in a natural ecosystem, | ||
| 123 | 05:44 | a feedback loop between customers and businesses. | ||
| 124 | 05:48 | Raising wages increases demand, | ||
| 125 | 05:51 | which increases hiring, | ||
| 126 | 05:53 | which in turn increases wages | ||
| 127 | 05:55 | and demand and profits, | ||
| 128 | 05:58 | and that virtuous cycle of increasing prosperity | ||
| 129 | 06:02 | is precisely what is missing | ||
| 130 | 06:05 | from today's economic recovery. | ||
| 131 | 06:10 | And this is why we need to put behind us | ||
| 132 | 06:14 | the trickle-down policies that so dominate | ||
| 133 | 06:18 | both political parties | ||
| 134 | 06:20 | and embrace something I call middle-out economics. | ||
| 135 | 06:23 | Middle-out economics rejects | ||
| 136 | 06:26 | the neoclassical economic idea | ||
| 137 | 06:28 | that economies are efficient, linear, mechanistic, | ||
| 138 | 06:32 | that they tend towards equilibrium and fairness, | ||
| 139 | 06:35 | and instead embraces the 21st-century idea | ||
| 140 | 06:39 | that economies are complex, adaptive, | ||
| 141 | 06:42 | ecosystemic, | ||
| 142 | 06:44 | that they tend away from equilibrium and toward inequality, | ||
| 143 | 06:48 | that they're not efficient at all | ||
| 144 | 06:50 | but are effective if well managed. | ||
| 145 | 06:53 | This 21st-century perspective | ||
| 146 | 06:56 | allows you to clearly see that capitalism | ||
| 147 | 06:59 | does not work by [efficiently] allocating | ||
| 148 | 07:02 | existing resources. | ||
| 149 | 07:04 | It works by [efficiently] creating new solutions | ||
| 150 | 07:10 | to human problems. | ||
| 151 | 07:12 | The genius of capitalism | ||
| 152 | 07:14 | is that it is an evolutionary solution-finding system. | ||
| 153 | 07:19 | It rewards people for solving other people's problems. | ||
| 154 | 07:25 | The difference between a poor society | ||
| 155 | 07:28 | and a rich society, obviously, | ||
| 156 | 07:30 | is the degree to which that society | ||
| 157 | 07:33 | has generated solutions in the form | ||
| 158 | 07:35 | of products for its citizens. | ||
| 159 | 07:38 | The sum of the solutions | ||
| 160 | 07:40 | that we have in our society | ||
| 161 | 07:42 | really is our prosperity, and this explains | ||
| 162 | 07:44 | why companies like Google and Amazon | ||
| 163 | 07:46 | and Microsoft and Apple | ||
| 164 | 07:49 | and the entrepreneurs who created those companies | ||
| 165 | 07:52 | have contributed so much | ||
| 166 | 07:55 | to our nation's prosperity. | ||
| 167 | 07:58 | This 21st-century perspective | ||
| 168 | 08:01 | also makes clear | ||
| 169 | 08:03 | that what we think of as economic growth | ||
| 170 | 08:06 | is best understood as | ||
| 171 | 08:08 | the rate at which we solve problems. | ||
| 172 | 08:10 | But that rate is totally dependent upon | ||
| 173 | 08:13 | how many problem solvers — | ||
| 174 | 08:17 | diverse, able problem solvers — we have, | ||
| 175 | 08:20 | and thus how many of our fellow citizens | ||
| 176 | 08:22 | actively participate, | ||
| 177 | 08:24 | both as entrepreneurs who can offer solutions, | ||
| 178 | 08:28 | and as customers who consume them. | ||
| 179 | 08:32 | But this maximizing participation thing | ||
| 180 | 08:36 | doesn't happen by accident. | ||
| 181 | 08:38 | It doesn't happen by itself. | ||
| 182 | 08:39 | It requires effort and investment, | ||
| 183 | 08:43 | which is why all | ||
| 184 | 08:46 | highly prosperous capitalist democracies | ||
| 185 | 08:49 | are characterized by massive investments | ||
| 186 | 08:51 | in the middle class and the infrastructure | ||
| 187 | 08:54 | that they depend on. | ||
| 188 | 08:57 | We plutocrats need to get this | ||
| 189 | 08:59 | trickle-down economics thing behind us, | ||
| 190 | 09:02 | this idea that the better we do, | ||
| 191 | 09:04 | the better everyone else will do. | ||
| 192 | 09:07 | It's not true. How could it be? | ||
| 193 | 09:10 | I earn 1,000 times the median wage, | ||
| 194 | 09:15 | but I do not buy 1,000 times as much stuff, | ||
| 195 | 09:18 | do I? | ||
| 196 | 09:19 | I actually bought two pairs of these pants, | ||
| 197 | 09:22 | what my partner Mike calls | ||
| 198 | 09:24 | my manager pants. | ||
| 199 | 09:25 | I could have bought 2,000 pairs, | ||
| 200 | 09:28 | but what would I do with them? (Laughter) | ||
| 201 | 09:31 | How many haircuts can I get? | ||
| 202 | 09:34 | How often can I go out to dinner? | ||
| 203 | 09:38 | No matter how wealthy a few plutocrats get, | ||
| 204 | 09:42 | we can never drive a great national economy. | ||
| 205 | 09:46 | Only a thriving middle class can do that. | ||
| 206 | 09:51 | There's nothing to be done, | ||
| 207 | 09:53 | my plutocrat friends might say. | ||
| 208 | 09:57 | Henry Ford was in a different time. | ||
| 209 | 10:00 | Maybe we can't do some things. | ||
| 210 | 10:03 | Maybe we can do some things. | ||
| 211 | 10:06 | June 19, 2013, | ||
| 212 | 10:09 | Bloomberg published an article I wrote called | ||
| 213 | 10:13 | "The Capitalist’s Case for a $15 Minimum Wage." | ||
| 214 | 10:18 | The good people at Forbes magazine, | ||
| 215 | 10:21 | among my biggest admirers, | ||
| 216 | 10:23 | called it "Nick Hanauer's near-insane proposal." | ||
| 217 | 10:28 | And yet, just 350 days | ||
| 218 | 10:31 | after that article was published, | ||
| 219 | 10:33 | Seattle's Mayor Ed Murray signed into law | ||
| 220 | 10:36 | an ordinance raising the minimum wage in Seattle | ||
| 221 | 10:40 | to 15 dollars an hour, | ||
| 222 | 10:42 | more than double | ||
| 223 | 10:43 | what the prevailing federal $7.25 rate is. | ||
| 224 | 10:48 | How did this happen, | ||
| 225 | 10:50 | reasonable people might ask. | ||
| 226 | 10:52 | It happened because a group of us | ||
| 227 | 10:53 | reminded the middle class | ||
| 228 | 10:55 | that they are the source | ||
| 229 | 10:56 | of growth and prosperity in capitalist economies. | ||
| 230 | 11:00 | We reminded them that when workers have more money, | ||
| 231 | 11:04 | businesses have more customers, | ||
| 232 | 11:05 | and need more employees. | ||
| 233 | 11:07 | We reminded them that when businesses | ||
| 234 | 11:10 | pay workers a living wage, | ||
| 235 | 11:13 | taxpayers are relieved of the burden | ||
| 236 | 11:15 | of funding the poverty programs | ||
| 237 | 11:16 | like food stamps and medical assistance | ||
| 238 | 11:19 | and rent assistance | ||
| 239 | 11:21 | that those workers need. | ||
| 240 | 11:23 | We reminded them that low-wage workers | ||
| 241 | 11:26 | make terrible taxpayers, | ||
| 242 | 11:29 | and that when you raise the minimum wage | ||
| 243 | 11:31 | for all businesses, | ||
| 244 | 11:33 | all businesses benefit | ||
| 245 | 11:35 | yet all can compete. | ||
| 246 | 11:37 | Now the orthodox reaction, of course, | ||
| 247 | 11:39 | is raising the minimum wage costs jobs. Right? | ||
| 248 | 11:43 | Your politician's always echoing | ||
| 249 | 11:45 | that trickle-down idea by saying things like, | ||
| 250 | 11:48 | "Well, if you raise the price of employment, | ||
| 251 | 11:51 | guess what happens? You get less of it." | ||
| 252 | 11:53 | Are you sure? | ||
| 253 | 11:56 | Because there's some contravening evidence. | ||
| 254 | 11:59 | Since 1980, the wages of CEOs in our country | ||
| 255 | 12:04 | have gone from about 30 times the median wage | ||
| 256 | 12:06 | to 500 times. | ||
| 257 | 12:09 | That's raising the price of employment. | ||
| 258 | 12:12 | And yet, to my knowledge, | ||
| 259 | 12:15 | I have never seen a company | ||
| 260 | 12:17 | outsource its CEO's job, automate their job, | ||
| 261 | 12:21 | export the job to China. | ||
| 262 | 12:23 | In fact, we appear to be employing | ||
| 263 | 12:25 | more CEOs and senior managers than ever before. | ||
| 264 | 12:28 | So too for technology workers | ||
| 265 | 12:32 | and financial services workers, | ||
| 266 | 12:34 | who earn multiples of the median wage | ||
| 267 | 12:37 | and yet we employ more and more of them, | ||
| 268 | 12:39 | so clearly you can raise the price of employment | ||
| 269 | 12:44 | and get more of it. | ||
| 270 | 12:46 | I know that most people | ||
| 271 | 12:48 | think that the $15 minimum wage | ||
| 272 | 12:50 | is this insane, risky economic experiment. | ||
| 273 | 12:54 | We disagree. | ||
| 274 | 12:56 | We believe that the $15 minimum wage | ||
| 275 | 12:58 | in Seattle | ||
| 276 | 13:00 | is actually the continuation | ||
| 277 | 13:01 | of a logical economic policy. | ||
| 278 | 13:04 | It is allowing our city | ||
| 279 | 13:06 | to kick your city's ass. | ||
| 280 | 13:09 | Because, you see, | ||
| 281 | 13:11 | Washington state already has | ||
| 282 | 13:12 | the highest minimum wage | ||
| 283 | 13:14 | of any state in the nation. | ||
| 284 | 13:15 | We pay all workers $9.32, | ||
| 285 | 13:18 | which is almost 30 percent more | ||
| 286 | 13:20 | than the federal minimum of 7.25, | ||
| 287 | 13:22 | but crucially, 427 percent more | ||
| 288 | 13:26 | than the federal tipped minimum of 2.13. | ||
| 289 | 13:30 | If trickle-down thinkers were right, | ||
| 290 | 13:32 | then Washington state should have massive unemployment. | ||
| 291 | 13:35 | Seattle should be sliding into the ocean. | ||
| 292 | 13:38 | And yet, Seattle | ||
| 293 | 13:41 | is the fastest-growing big city in the country. | ||
| 294 | 13:45 | Washington state is generating small business jobs | ||
| 295 | 13:49 | at a higher rate than any other major state | ||
| 296 | 13:52 | in the nation. | ||
| 297 | 13:54 | The restaurant business in Seattle? Booming. | ||
| 298 | 13:58 | Why? Because the fundamental law of capitalism is, | ||
| 299 | 14:02 | when workers have more money, | ||
| 300 | 14:04 | businesses have more customers | ||
| 301 | 14:05 | and need more workers. | ||
| 302 | 14:07 | When restaurants pay restaurant workers enough | ||
| 303 | 14:10 | so that even they can afford to eat in restaurants, | ||
| 304 | 14:14 | that's not bad for the restaurant business. | ||
| 305 | 14:17 | That's good for it, | ||
| 306 | 14:18 | despite what some restaurateurs may tell you. | ||
| 307 | 14:23 | Is it more complicated than I'm making out? | ||
| 308 | 14:25 | Of course it is. | ||
| 309 | 14:26 | There are a lot of dynamics at play. | ||
| 310 | 14:28 | But can we please stop insisting | ||
| 311 | 14:30 | that if low-wage workers earn a little bit more, | ||
| 312 | 14:33 | unemployment will skyrocket | ||
| 313 | 14:34 | and the economy will collapse? | ||
| 314 | 14:36 | There is no evidence for it. | ||
| 315 | 14:38 | The most insidious thing | ||
| 316 | 14:40 | about trickle-down economics | ||
| 317 | 14:42 | is not the claim that if the rich get richer, | ||
| 318 | 14:44 | everyone is better off. | ||
| 319 | 14:45 | It is the claim made by those who oppose | ||
| 320 | 14:48 | any increase in the minimum wage | ||
| 321 | 14:50 | that if the poor get richer, | ||
| 322 | 14:52 | that will be bad for the economy. | ||
| 323 | 14:54 | This is nonsense. | ||
| 324 | 14:56 | So can we please dispense with this rhetoric | ||
| 325 | 15:00 | that says that rich guys like me | ||
| 326 | 15:03 | and my plutocrat friends | ||
| 327 | 15:05 | made our country? | ||
| 328 | 15:08 | We plutocrats know, | ||
| 329 | 15:10 | even if we don't like to admit it in public, | ||
| 330 | 15:12 | that if we had been born somewhere else, | ||
| 331 | 15:14 | not here in the United States, | ||
| 332 | 15:16 | we might very well be just some dude standing barefoot | ||
| 333 | 15:19 | by the side of a dirt road selling fruit. | ||
| 334 | 15:22 | It's not that they don't have good entrepreneurs in other places, | ||
| 335 | 15:25 | even very, very poor places. | ||
| 336 | 15:27 | It's just that that's all | ||
| 337 | 15:28 | that those entrepreneurs' customers can afford. | ||
| 338 | 15:33 | So here's an idea for a new kind of economics, | ||
| 339 | 15:38 | a new kind of politics | ||
| 340 | 15:39 | that I call new capitalism. | ||
| 341 | 15:42 | Let's acknowledge that capitalism | ||
| 342 | 15:44 | beats the alternatives, | ||
| 343 | 15:46 | but also that the more people we include, | ||
| 344 | 15:50 | both as entrepreneurs and as customers, | ||
| 345 | 15:54 | the better it works. | ||
| 346 | 15:56 | Let's by all means shrink the size of government, | ||
| 347 | 16:00 | but not by slashing the poverty programs, | ||
| 348 | 16:02 | but by ensuring that workers are paid enough | ||
| 349 | 16:04 | so that they actually don't need those programs. | ||
| 350 | 16:08 | Let's invest enough in the middle class | ||
| 351 | 16:11 | to make our economy fairer and more inclusive, | ||
| 352 | 16:14 | and by fairer, more truly competitive, | ||
| 353 | 16:18 | and by more truly competitive, | ||
| 354 | 16:20 | more able to generate the solutions | ||
| 355 | 16:22 | to human problems | ||
| 356 | 16:24 | that are the true drivers of growth and prosperity. | ||
| 357 | 16:29 | Capitalism is the greatest social technology | ||
| 358 | 16:33 | ever invented | ||
| 359 | 16:34 | for creating prosperity in human societies, | ||
| 360 | 16:37 | if it is well managed, | ||
| 361 | 16:39 | but capitalism, because of the fundamental | ||
| 362 | 16:42 | multiplicative dynamics of complex systems, | ||
| 363 | 16:45 | tends towards, inexorably, inequality, | ||
| 364 | 16:48 | concentration and collapse. | ||
| 365 | 16:53 | The work of democracies | ||
| 366 | 16:55 | is to maximize the inclusion of the many | ||
| 367 | 17:00 | in order to create prosperity, | ||
| 368 | 17:03 | not to enable the few to accumulate money. | ||
| 369 | 17:07 | Government does create prosperity and growth, | ||
| 370 | 17:10 | by creating the conditions that allow | ||
| 371 | 17:13 | both entrepreneurs and their customers | ||
| 372 | 17:16 | to thrive. | ||
| 373 | 17:18 | Balancing the power of capitalists like me | ||
| 374 | 17:21 | and workers isn't bad for capitalism. | ||
| 375 | 17:24 | It's essential to it. | ||
| 376 | 17:26 | Programs like a reasonable minimum wage, | ||
| 377 | 17:28 | affordable healthcare, | ||
| 378 | 17:30 | paid sick leave, | ||
| 379 | 17:32 | and the progressive taxation necessary | ||
| 380 | 17:35 | to pay for the important infrastructure | ||
| 381 | 17:37 | necessary for the middle class like education, R and D, | ||
| 382 | 17:41 | these are indispensable tools | ||
| 383 | 17:44 | shrewd capitalists should embrace | ||
| 384 | 17:46 | to drive growth, because no one benefits from it | ||
| 385 | 17:50 | like us. | ||
| 386 | 17:52 | Many economists would have you believe | ||
| 387 | 17:54 | that their field is an objective science. | ||
| 388 | 17:57 | I disagree, and I think that it is equally | ||
| 389 | 18:00 | a tool that humans use | ||
| 390 | 18:02 | to enforce and encode | ||
| 391 | 18:04 | our social and moral preferences and prejudices | ||
| 392 | 18:07 | about status and power, | ||
| 393 | 18:11 | which is why plutocrats like me | ||
| 394 | 18:14 | have always needed to find persuasive stories | ||
| 395 | 18:18 | to tell everyone else | ||
| 396 | 18:19 | about why our relative positions | ||
| 397 | 18:23 | are morally righteous and good for everyone: | ||
| 398 | 18:28 | like, we are indispensable, the job creators, | ||
| 399 | 18:32 | and you are not; | ||
| 400 | 18:34 | like, tax cuts for us create growth, | ||
| 401 | 18:38 | but investments in you | ||
| 402 | 18:40 | will balloon our debt | ||
| 403 | 18:41 | and bankrupt our great country; | ||
| 404 | 18:44 | that we matter; | ||
| 405 | 18:46 | that you don't. | ||
| 406 | 18:48 | For thousands of years, these stories were called | ||
| 407 | 18:51 | divine right. | ||
| 408 | 18:52 | Today, we have trickle-down economics. | ||
| 409 | 18:56 | How obviously, transparently self-serving | ||
| 410 | 19:00 | all of this is. | ||
| 411 | 19:02 | We plutocrats need to see | ||
| 412 | 19:05 | that the United States of America made us, | ||
| 413 | 19:07 | not the other way around; | ||
| 414 | 19:09 | that a thriving middle class is the source | ||
| 415 | 19:11 | of prosperity in capitalist economies, | ||
| 416 | 19:14 | not a consequence of it. | ||
| 417 | 19:16 | And we should never forget | ||
| 418 | 19:19 | that even the best of us in the worst of circumstances | ||
| 419 | 19:23 | are barefoot by the side of a dirt road selling fruit. | ||
| 420 | 19:28 | Fellow plutocrats, I think it may be time for us | ||
| 421 | 19:31 | to recommit to our country, | ||
| 422 | 19:33 | to commit to a new kind of capitalism | ||
| 423 | 19:36 | which is both more inclusive and more effective, | ||
| 424 | 19:40 | a capitalism that will ensure | ||
| 425 | 19:42 | that America's economy remains | ||
| 426 | 19:45 | the most dynamic and prosperous in the world. | ||
| 427 | 19:49 | Let's secure the future for ourselves, | ||
| 428 | 19:51 | our children and their children. | ||
| 429 | 19:54 | Or alternatively, we could do nothing, | ||
| 430 | 19:57 | hide in our gated communities | ||
| 431 | 19:59 | and private schools, | ||
| 432 | 20:02 | enjoy our planes and yachts | ||
| 433 | 20:04 | — they're fun — | ||
| 434 | 20:06 | and wait for the pitchforks. | ||
| 435 | 20:08 | Thank you. | ||
| 436 | 20:09 | (Applause) |