0:00:00.958,0:00:02.643
Do you feel trapped

0:00:02.667,0:00:05.059
in a broken economic model?

0:00:05.083,0:00:07.726
A model that's trashing the living world

0:00:07.750,0:00:11.726
and threatens the lives[br]of our descendants?

0:00:11.750,0:00:15.684
A model that excludes billions of people

0:00:15.708,0:00:19.684
while making a handful unimaginably rich?

0:00:19.708,0:00:22.851
That sorts us into winners and losers,

0:00:22.875,0:00:27.393
and then blames the losers[br]for their misfortune?

0:00:27.417,0:00:29.976
Welcome to neoliberalism,

0:00:30.000,0:00:33.476
the zombie doctrine[br]that never seems to die,

0:00:33.500,0:00:37.351
however comprehensively it is discredited.

0:00:37.375,0:00:42.893
Now you might have imagined[br]that the financial crisis of 2008

0:00:42.917,0:00:45.934
would have led to the collapse[br]of neoliberalism.

0:00:45.958,0:00:49.518
After all, it exposed[br]its central features,

0:00:49.542,0:00:54.268
which were deregulating[br]business and finance,

0:00:54.292,0:00:56.809
tearing down public protections,

0:00:56.833,0:00:59.976
throwing us into extreme[br]competition with each other,

0:01:00.000,0:01:03.643
as, well, just a little bit flawed.

0:01:03.667,0:01:06.875
And intellectually, it did collapse.

0:01:07.792,0:01:12.143
But still, it dominates our lives.

0:01:12.167,0:01:13.976
Why?

0:01:14.000,0:01:18.143
Well, I believe the answer[br]is that we have not yet produced

0:01:18.167,0:01:21.917
a new story with which to replace it.

0:01:23.125,0:01:27.143
Stories are the means[br]by which we navigate the world.

0:01:27.167,0:01:32.101
They allow us to interpret[br]its complex and contradictory signals.

0:01:32.125,0:01:35.809
When we want to make sense of something,

0:01:35.833,0:01:40.059
the sense we seek is not scientific sense

0:01:40.083,0:01:42.976
but narrative fidelity.

0:01:43.000,0:01:46.184
Does what we are hearing reflect the way

0:01:46.208,0:01:50.351
that we expect humans[br]and the world to behave?

0:01:50.375,0:01:52.476
Does it hang together?

0:01:52.500,0:01:54.143
Does it progress

0:01:54.167,0:01:56.917
as a story should progress?

0:01:58.458,0:02:01.518
Now, we are creatures of narrative,

0:02:01.542,0:02:07.559
and a string of facts and figures,[br]however important facts and figures are --

0:02:07.583,0:02:10.768
and, you know, I'm an empiricist,[br]I believe in facts and figures --

0:02:10.792,0:02:17.000
but those facts and figures have no power[br]to displace a persuasive story.

0:02:17.833,0:02:20.958
The only thing that can replace a story

0:02:22.583,0:02:24.268
is a story.

0:02:24.292,0:02:26.768
You cannot take away someone's story

0:02:26.792,0:02:29.851
without giving them a new one.

0:02:29.875,0:02:34.309
And it's not just stories in general[br]that we are attuned to,

0:02:34.333,0:02:37.851
but particular narrative structures.

0:02:37.875,0:02:43.268
There are a number of basic plots[br]that we use again and again,

0:02:43.292,0:02:47.893
and in politics there is one basic plot

0:02:47.917,0:02:52.101
which turns out to be[br]tremendously powerful,

0:02:52.125,0:02:55.083
and I call this "the restoration story."

0:02:56.000,0:02:57.333
It goes as follows.

0:02:59.000,0:03:01.518
Disorder afflicts the land,

0:03:01.542,0:03:05.226
caused by powerful and nefarious forces

0:03:05.250,0:03:08.184
working against the interests of humanity.

0:03:08.208,0:03:12.101
But the hero will revolt[br]against this disorder,

0:03:12.125,0:03:14.268
fight those powerful forces,

0:03:14.292,0:03:17.018
against the odds overthrow them

0:03:17.042,0:03:20.083
and restore harmony to the land.

0:03:21.167,0:03:22.958
You've heard this story before.

0:03:23.750,0:03:25.351
It's the Bible story.

0:03:25.375,0:03:27.476
It's the "Harry Potter" story.

0:03:27.500,0:03:29.976
It's the "Lord of the Rings" story.

0:03:30.000,0:03:31.833
It's the "Narnia" story.

0:03:32.583,0:03:34.976
But it's also the story

0:03:35.000,0:03:40.351
that has accompanied almost every[br]political and religious transformation

0:03:40.375,0:03:42.101
going back millennia.

0:03:42.125,0:03:44.893
In fact, we could go as far as to say

0:03:44.917,0:03:50.101
that without a powerful[br]new restoration story,

0:03:50.125,0:03:53.059
a political and religious transformation

0:03:53.083,0:03:54.792
might not be able to happen.

0:03:55.625,0:03:57.125
It's that important.

0:03:58.250,0:04:03.184
After laissez-faire economics[br]triggered the Great Depression,

0:04:03.208,0:04:08.643
John Maynard Keynes[br]sat down to write a new economics,

0:04:08.667,0:04:12.559
and what he did was to tell[br]a restoration story,

0:04:12.583,0:04:14.250
and it went something like this.

0:04:15.750,0:04:18.184
Disorder afflicts the land!

0:04:18.208,0:04:19.476
(Laughter)

0:04:19.500,0:04:24.184
Caused by the powerful and nefarious[br]forces of the economic elite,

0:04:24.208,0:04:27.125
which have captured the world's wealth.

0:04:27.833,0:04:30.184
But the hero of the story,

0:04:30.208,0:04:35.893
the enabling state, supported[br]by working class and middle class people,

0:04:35.917,0:04:37.976
will contest that disorder,

0:04:38.000,0:04:42.559
will fight those powerful forces[br]by redistributing wealth,

0:04:42.583,0:04:46.268
and through spending[br]public money on public goods

0:04:46.292,0:04:49.434
will generate income and jobs,

0:04:49.458,0:04:53.101
restoring harmony to the land.

0:04:53.125,0:04:55.476
Now like all good restoration stories,

0:04:55.500,0:04:59.018
this one resonated[br]across the political spectrum.

0:04:59.042,0:05:02.934
Democrats and Republicans,[br]labor and conservatives,

0:05:02.958,0:05:06.667
left and right all became,[br]broadly, Keynesian.

0:05:07.708,0:05:10.226
Then, when Keynesianism ran into trouble

0:05:10.250,0:05:12.309
in the 1970s,

0:05:12.333,0:05:16.684
the neoliberals, people like[br]Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman,

0:05:16.708,0:05:20.059
came forward with[br]their new restoration story,

0:05:20.083,0:05:21.625
and it went something like this.

0:05:22.917,0:05:24.518
You'll never guess what's coming.

0:05:24.542,0:05:25.809
(Laughter)

0:05:25.833,0:05:28.643
Disorder afflicts the land!

0:05:28.667,0:05:33.184
Caused by the powerful[br]and nefarious forces

0:05:33.208,0:05:35.684
of the overmighty state,

0:05:35.708,0:05:40.434
whose collectivizing tendencies[br]crush freedom and individualism

0:05:40.458,0:05:42.101
and opportunity.

0:05:42.125,0:05:45.309
But the hero of the story,[br]the entrepreneur,

0:05:45.333,0:05:48.601
will fight those powerful forces,

0:05:48.625,0:05:50.309
roll back the state,

0:05:50.333,0:05:53.601
and through creating[br]wealth and opportunity,

0:05:53.625,0:05:56.893
restore harmony to the land.

0:05:56.917,0:06:01.518
And that story also resonated[br]across the political spectrum.

0:06:01.542,0:06:04.601
Republicans and Democrats,[br]conservatives and labor,

0:06:04.625,0:06:08.083
they all became, broadly, neoliberal.

0:06:10.583,0:06:12.167
Opposite stories

0:06:13.333,0:06:16.542
with an identical narrative structure.

0:06:17.917,0:06:20.893
Then, in 2008,

0:06:20.917,0:06:23.226
the neoliberal story fell apart,

0:06:23.250,0:06:25.708
and its opponents came forward with ...

0:06:29.083,0:06:30.643
nothing.

0:06:30.667,0:06:33.434
No new restoration story!

0:06:33.458,0:06:36.934
The best they had to offer[br]was a watered-down neoliberalism

0:06:36.958,0:06:39.542
or a microwaved Keynesianism.

0:06:41.125,0:06:44.518
And that is why we're stuck.

0:06:44.542,0:06:46.643
Without that new story,

0:06:46.667,0:06:49.934
we are stuck with the old failed story

0:06:49.958,0:06:51.625
that keeps on failing.

0:06:52.833,0:06:56.476
Despair is the state we fall into

0:06:56.500,0:06:59.476
when our imagination fails.

0:06:59.500,0:07:03.643
When we have no story[br]that explains the present

0:07:03.667,0:07:06.059
and describes the future,

0:07:06.083,0:07:09.059
hope evaporates.

0:07:09.083,0:07:12.059
Political failure is at heart

0:07:12.083,0:07:14.875
a failure of imagination.

0:07:15.792,0:07:18.851
Without a restoration story

0:07:18.875,0:07:21.768
that can tell us where we need to go,

0:07:21.792,0:07:23.851
nothing is going to change,

0:07:23.875,0:07:26.684
but with such a restoration story,

0:07:26.708,0:07:29.583
almost everything can change.

0:07:30.917,0:07:33.643
The story we need to tell

0:07:33.667,0:07:37.309
is a story which will appeal[br]to as wide a range of people as possible,

0:07:37.333,0:07:39.809
crossing political fault lines.

0:07:39.833,0:07:43.393
It should resonate[br]with deep needs and desires.

0:07:43.417,0:07:46.601
It should be simple and intelligible,

0:07:46.625,0:07:49.393
and it should be grounded in reality.

0:07:49.417,0:07:53.750
Now, I admit that all of this sounds[br]like a bit of a tall order.

0:07:54.542,0:07:56.393
But I believe that in Western nations,

0:07:56.417,0:07:59.768
there is actually a story like this

0:07:59.792,0:08:01.125
waiting to be told.

0:08:02.833,0:08:04.143
Over the past few years,

0:08:04.167,0:08:07.601
there's been a fascinating[br]convergence of findings

0:08:07.625,0:08:09.268
in several different sciences,

0:08:09.292,0:08:14.351
in psychology and anthropology[br]and neuroscience and evolutionary biology,

0:08:14.375,0:08:18.059
and they all tell us[br]something pretty amazing:

0:08:18.083,0:08:23.351
that human beings have got[br]this massive capacity for altruism.

0:08:23.375,0:08:27.393
Sure, we all have a bit of selfishness[br]and greed inside us,

0:08:27.417,0:08:31.750
but in most people,[br]those are not our dominant values.

0:08:32.417,0:08:36.643
And we also turn out to be[br]the supreme cooperators.

0:08:36.667,0:08:38.768
We survived the African savannas,

0:08:38.792,0:08:44.393
despite being weaker and slower[br]than our predators and most of our prey,

0:08:44.417,0:08:49.684
by an amazing ability[br]to engage in mutual aid,

0:08:49.708,0:08:54.893
and that urge to cooperate[br]has been hardwired into our minds

0:08:54.917,0:08:56.934
through natural selection.

0:08:56.958,0:09:01.809
These are the central,[br]crucial facts about humankind:

0:09:01.833,0:09:05.625
our amazing altruism and cooperation.

0:09:06.708,0:09:10.351
But something has gone horribly wrong.

0:09:10.375,0:09:12.601
Disorder afflicts the land.

0:09:12.625,0:09:15.226
(Laughter)

0:09:15.250,0:09:18.309
Our good nature has been thwarted[br]by several forces,

0:09:18.333,0:09:22.601
but I think the most powerful of them[br]is the dominant political narrative

0:09:22.625,0:09:24.351
of our times,

0:09:24.375,0:09:30.643
which tells us that we should live[br]in extreme individualism

0:09:30.667,0:09:33.184
and competition with each other.

0:09:33.208,0:09:38.809
It pushes us to fight each other,[br]to fear and mistrust each other.

0:09:38.833,0:09:40.518
It atomizes society.

0:09:40.542,0:09:46.018
It weakens the social bonds[br]that make our lives worth living.

0:09:46.042,0:09:49.018
And into that vacuum

0:09:49.042,0:09:54.143
grow these violent, intolerant forces.

0:09:54.167,0:09:56.292
We are a society of altruists,

0:09:58.042,0:10:00.226
but we are governed by psychopaths.

0:10:00.250,0:10:04.667
(Applause)

0:10:09.125,0:10:10.976
But it doesn't have to be like this.

0:10:11.000,0:10:12.309
It really doesn't,

0:10:12.333,0:10:16.768
because we have this incredible capacity[br]for togetherness and belonging,

0:10:16.792,0:10:18.726
and by invoking that capacity,

0:10:18.750,0:10:23.893
we can recover those amazing[br]components of our humanity:

0:10:23.917,0:10:27.059
our altruism and cooperation.

0:10:27.083,0:10:32.226
Where there is atomization,[br]we can build a thriving civic life

0:10:32.250,0:10:35.226
with a rich participatory culture.

0:10:35.250,0:10:39.309
Where we find ourselves crushed[br]between market and state,

0:10:39.333,0:10:45.184
we can build an economics[br]that respects both people and planet.

0:10:45.208,0:10:50.559
And we can create this economics[br]around that great neglected sphere,

0:10:50.583,0:10:51.934
the commons.

0:10:51.958,0:10:56.393
The commons is neither market nor state,[br]capitalism nor communism,

0:10:56.417,0:10:58.809
but it consists of three main elements:

0:10:58.833,0:11:00.684
a particular resource;

0:11:00.708,0:11:03.893
a particular community[br]that manages that resource;

0:11:03.917,0:11:09.143
and the rules and negotiations[br]the community develops to manage it.

0:11:09.167,0:11:13.434
Think of community broadband[br]or community energy cooperatives

0:11:13.458,0:11:16.643
or the shared land[br]for growing fruit and vegetables

0:11:16.667,0:11:19.434
that in Britain we call allotments.

0:11:19.458,0:11:22.476
A common can't be sold,[br]it can't be given away,

0:11:22.500,0:11:27.083
and its benefits are shared equally[br]among the members of the community.

0:11:28.000,0:11:31.643
Where we have been ignored and exploited,

0:11:31.667,0:11:33.601
we can revive our politics.

0:11:33.625,0:11:38.143
We can recover democracy[br]from the people who have captured it.

0:11:38.167,0:11:41.518
We can use new rules[br]and methods of elections

0:11:41.542,0:11:47.684
to ensure that financial power[br]never trumps democratic power again.

0:11:47.708,0:11:50.875
(Applause)

0:11:54.417,0:11:59.393
Representative democracy should[br]be tempered by participatory democracy

0:11:59.417,0:12:02.268
so that we can refine[br]our political choices,

0:12:02.292,0:12:07.434
and that choice should be exercised[br]as much as possible at the local level.

0:12:07.458,0:12:12.917
If something can be decided locally,[br]it shouldn't be determined nationally.

0:12:14.125,0:12:18.708
And I call all this[br]the politics of belonging.

0:12:19.358,0:12:22.976
Now, I think this has got[br]the potential to appeal

0:12:23.000,0:12:25.643
across quite a wide range of people,

0:12:25.667,0:12:29.268
and the reason for this[br]is that among the very few values

0:12:29.292,0:12:32.309
that both left and right share

0:12:32.333,0:12:35.684
are belonging and community.

0:12:35.708,0:12:38.184
And we might mean[br]slightly different things by them,

0:12:38.208,0:12:41.226
but at least we start[br]with some language in common.

0:12:41.250,0:12:46.351
In fact, you can see a lot of politics[br]as being a search for belonging.

0:12:46.375,0:12:49.559
Even fascists seek community,

0:12:49.583,0:12:52.643
albeit a frighteningly[br]homogenous community

0:12:52.667,0:12:55.309
where everyone looks the same[br]and wears the same uniform

0:12:55.333,0:12:57.893
and chants the same slogans.

0:12:57.917,0:13:02.351
What we need to create[br]is a community based on bridging networks,

0:13:02.375,0:13:03.851
not bonding networks.

0:13:03.875,0:13:08.268
Now a bonding network brings together[br]people from a homogenous group,

0:13:08.292,0:13:12.809
whereas a bridging network brings together[br]people from different groups.

0:13:12.833,0:13:14.809
And my belief is that if we create

0:13:14.833,0:13:19.518
sufficiently rich and vibrant[br]bridging communities,

0:13:19.542,0:13:24.476
we can thwart the urge[br]for people to burrow into the security

0:13:24.500,0:13:26.976
of a homogenous bonding community

0:13:27.000,0:13:29.458
defending themselves against the other.

0:13:31.583,0:13:33.559
So in summary,

0:13:33.583,0:13:36.750
our new story could go[br]something like this.

0:13:38.667,0:13:41.059
Disorder afflicts the land!

0:13:41.083,0:13:42.101
(Laughter)

0:13:42.125,0:13:44.476
Caused by the powerful[br]and nefarious forces

0:13:44.500,0:13:48.518
of people who say[br]there's no such thing as society,

0:13:48.542,0:13:51.893
who tell us that[br]our highest purpose in life

0:13:51.917,0:13:55.375
is to fight like stray dogs[br]over a dustbin.

0:13:56.708,0:13:59.726
But the heroes of the story, us,

0:13:59.750,0:14:02.434
we'll revolt against this disorder.

0:14:02.458,0:14:08.059
We will fight those nefarious forces[br]by building rich, engaging,

0:14:08.083,0:14:10.768
inclusive and generous communities,

0:14:10.792,0:14:12.393
and, in doing so,

0:14:12.417,0:14:15.101
we will restore harmony to the land.

0:14:15.125,0:14:18.750
(Applause)

0:14:22.625,0:14:26.184
Now whether or not[br]you feel this is the right story,

0:14:26.208,0:14:28.601
I hope you'll agree that we need one.

0:14:28.625,0:14:30.976
We need a new restoration story,

0:14:31.000,0:14:35.101
which is going to guide us[br]out of the mess we're in,

0:14:35.125,0:14:39.875
which tells us why we're in the mess[br]and tells us how to get out of that mess.

0:14:40.542,0:14:43.643
And that story, if we tell it right,

0:14:43.667,0:14:47.875
will infect the minds of people[br]across the political spectrum.

0:14:48.667,0:14:54.434
Our task is to tell the story[br]that lights the path to a better world.

0:14:54.458,0:14:55.726
Thank you.

0:14:55.750,0:14:59.375
(Applause)