I Come From One of the Most Liberal

8/17/2019 I Come From One of the Most Liberal

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So when I learned this, I asked, What made it possible? Because if you don't know why, you can't

do it again. If you want to replicate it and get the next two billion people out of poverty, because

that's what we're talking about: since I was a kid, two billion of the least of these, our brothers and

sisters, have been pulled out of poverty. I want the next two billion, so I've got to know why. And I

went in search of an answer. And it wasn't a political answer, because I didn't care. You knowwhat, I still don't care. I wanted the best answer from mainstream economists left, right and

center.

And here it is. There are five reasons that two billion of our brothers and sistershave been pulled

out of poverty since I was a kid. Number one: globalization. Number two: free trade.Number

three: property rights. Number four: rule of law. Number five: entrepreneurship. It was the free

enterprise system spreading around the world after 1970 that did that.

Now, I'm not naive. I know that free enterprise isn't everything we need to build a better

world. But that is great. And that's beyond politics. Here's what I learned. This is theepiphany. Capitalism is not just about accumulation. At its best, it's about aspiration,which is what

so many people on this stage talk about, is the aspiration that comes from dreams that are

embedded in the free enterprise system. And we've got to share it with more people.

Now, I want to tell you about a second epiphany. The best quote I've ever heard to summarize

the thoughts that I've just given you about pulling people out of poverty is as follows: "Free

markets have created more wealth than any system in history. They have lifted billions out of

poverty."

Who said it? It sounds like Milton Friedman or Ronald Reagan. Wrong. President Barack Obama

said that. Why do I know it by heart? Because he said it to me. Crazy. And I said, "What an

opportunity."

You know what I was a thinking? It was at an event that we were doing on the subject at

Georgetown University in May of 2015. And I thought, this is the solution to the biggest problem

facing America today. It's coming together around these ideas, liberals and conservatives, to help

people who need us the most. Now, I don't have to tell anybody in this room that we're in a

crisis, in America and many countries around the world with political polarization. It's risen to

critical, crisis levels. It's unpleasant. It's not right. There was an article last year in theProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which is one of the most prestigious scientific

journals published in the West. And it was an article in 2014 on political motive

asymmetry. What's that? That's what psychologists call the phenomenon of assuming that your

ideology is based in love but your opponents' ideology is based in hate. It's common in world

conflict. You expect to see this between Palestinians and Israelis, for example. What the authors

of this article found was that in America today, a majority of Republicans and Democrats suffer

from political motive asymmetry? A majority of people in our country today who are politically

active believe that they are motivated by love but the other side is motivated by hate. Think about

it. Think about it. Most people are walking around saying, "You know, my ideology is based on


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basic benevolence, I want to help people, but the other guys, they're evil and out to get me." You

can't progress as a society when you have this kind of asymmetry. It's impossible.

How do we solve it? Well, first, let's be honest: there are differences. Let's not minimize the

differences. That would be really naïve.

There's a lot of good research on this. A veteran of the TED stage is my friend Jonathan

Haidt. He's a psychology professor at New York University. He does work on the ideology and

values and morals of different people to see how they differ. And he's shown, for example, that

conservatives and liberals have a very different emphasis on what they think is important. For

example, Jon Haidt has shown that liberals care about poverty 59 percent more than they care

about economic liberty. And conservatives care about economic liberty 28 percent more than

they care about poverty.

Irreconcilable differences, right? We'll never come together. Wrong. That is diversity in which liesour strength. Remember what pulled up the poor. It was the obsession with

poverty, accompanied by the method of economic freedom spreading around the world. We need

each other, in other words, if we want to help people and get the next two billion people out of

poverty. There's no other way. How are we going to get that? We need innovative thinking. A lot

of it's on this stage. Social entrepreneurship. Yeah. Absolutely. Phenomenal. We need

investment overseas in a sustainable, responsible, ethical and moral way. Yes. Yes.

But you know what we really need? We need a new day in flexible ideology. We need to be less

predictable. Don't we? Do you ever feel like your own ideology is starting to get

predictable? Kinda conventional? Do you ever feel like you're always listening to people who

agree with you? Why is that dangerous? Because when we talk in this country about

economics, on the right, conservatives, you're always talking about taxes and regulations and big

government. And on the left, liberals, you're talking about economics, it's always about income

inequality. Now those are important things, really important to me, really important to you. But

when it comes to lifting people up who are starving and need us today, those are distractions. We

need to come together around the best ways to mitigate poverty using the best tools at our

disposal, and that comes only when conservatives recognize that they need liberals and their

obsession with poverty, and liberals need conservatives and their obsession with free

markets. That's the diversity in which lies the future strength of this country, if we choose to takeit.

So how are we going to do it? How are we going to do it together? I've got to have some action

items, not just for you but for me. Action item number one: remember, it's not good enough just to

tolerate people who disagree. It's not good enough. We have to remember that we need people

who disagree with us, because there are people who need all of us who are still waiting for these

tools. Now, what are you going to do? Where does this start? It starts here. You know, all of us in

this room, we're blessed. We're blessed with people who listen to us. We're blessed with

prosperity. We're blessed with leadership. When people hear us, with the kind of unpredictable

ideology, then maybe people will listen. Maybe progress will start at that point. That's number


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one. Number two: I'm asking you and I'm asking me to be the person specifically who blurs the

lines, who is ambiguous, who is hard to classify. If you're a conservative, be the conservative who

is always going on about poverty and the moral obligation to be a warrior for the poor. And if

you're a liberal, be a liberal who is always talking about the beauty of free markets to solve our

problems when we use them responsibly.

If we do that, we get two things. Number one: we get to start to work on the next two billion and

be the solution that we've seen so much of in the past and we need to see more of in the future.

That's what we get. And the second is that we might just be able to take the ghastly holy war of

ideology that we're suffering under in this country and turn it into a competition of ideas based on

solidarity and mutual respect. And then maybe, just maybe, we'll all realize that our big

differences aren't really that big after all.

Thank you.

I Come From One of the Most Liberal

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