0:00:01.370,0:00:04.579
It was a cold, sunny March day.

0:00:05.318,0:00:07.875
I was walking along the street in Riga.

0:00:08.796,0:00:12.042
I remember the winter was slowly[br]coming to an end.

0:00:12.066,0:00:14.813
There was still some snow[br]around here and there,

0:00:14.837,0:00:17.827
but the pavement[br]was already clear and dry.

0:00:18.151,0:00:19.396
If you've lived in Riga,

0:00:19.420,0:00:24.795
you will know that feeling of relief[br]that the first signs of spring bring,

0:00:24.819,0:00:27.525
and you no longer have to trudge[br]through that slushy mix

0:00:27.549,0:00:29.228
of snow and mud on the streets.

0:00:30.099,0:00:33.262
So there I am, enjoying my stroll,

0:00:33.286,0:00:38.675
as I suddenly notice a stencil[br]on the pavement in front of me,

0:00:38.699,0:00:39.884
a graffiti:

0:00:41.177,0:00:44.956
white letters painted[br]on these dark grey bricks.

0:00:44.980,0:00:46.449
It says,

0:00:46.473,0:00:51.192
"Where is your responsibility?"

0:00:52.904,0:00:55.138
The question stopped me in my tracks.

0:00:56.102,0:00:59.789
As I'm standing there[br]considering its meaning,

0:00:59.813,0:01:04.964
I notice I'm standing outside the Riga[br]Municipality Social Welfare Department.

0:01:05.660,0:01:09.490
So it appears that the author[br]of this graffiti, whoever it is,

0:01:09.514,0:01:14.115
is asking this question to people[br]coming to apply for social assistance.

0:01:15.845,0:01:17.303
That winter,

0:01:17.327,0:01:22.719
I had been doing research on the aftermath[br]of the financial crisis in Latvia.

0:01:22.743,0:01:27.826
When the Global Financial Crisis[br]erupted in 2008, Latvia got hit hard

0:01:27.850,0:01:29.971
as a small, open economy.

0:01:30.439,0:01:31.615
To balance the books,

0:01:31.639,0:01:35.412
the Latvian government chose[br]a strategy of internal devaluation.

0:01:35.436,0:01:40.011
Now, in essence, that meant drastically[br]reducing public budget spending,

0:01:40.035,0:01:42.890
so, slashing public sector workers' wages,

0:01:42.914,0:01:44.395
shrinking civil service,

0:01:44.419,0:01:47.463
cutting unemployment benefits[br]and other social assistance,

0:01:47.487,0:01:49.001
raising taxes.

0:01:49.720,0:01:53.028
My mother had been working[br]as a history teacher her whole life.

0:01:53.575,0:01:59.032
The austerity for her meant[br]seeing her salary cut by 30 percent

0:01:59.056,0:02:00.539
all of a sudden.

0:02:00.563,0:02:03.773
And there were many in a situation[br]like hers or worse.

0:02:03.797,0:02:08.530
The costs of the crisis were put[br]on the shoulders of ordinary Latvians.

0:02:10.056,0:02:13.101
As a result of the crisis[br]and the austerity,

0:02:13.125,0:02:17.632
the Latvian economy shrank[br]by 25 percent in a two-year period.

0:02:17.656,0:02:20.524
Only Greece suffered[br]an economic contraction

0:02:20.548,0:02:22.387
of a comparable scale.

0:02:23.772,0:02:27.091
Yet, while Greeks were out[br]in the streets for months

0:02:27.115,0:02:31.260
staging continuous,[br]often violent protests in Athens,

0:02:31.284,0:02:34.452
all was quiet in Riga.

0:02:35.504,0:02:39.218
Prominent economists were fighting[br]in the columns of "The New York Times"

0:02:39.242,0:02:42.859
about this curious extreme[br]Latvian experiment

0:02:42.883,0:02:45.074
of this austerity regime,

0:02:45.098,0:02:46.971
and they were watching on in disbelief

0:02:46.995,0:02:49.393
how the Latvian society[br]was putting up with it.

0:02:50.607,0:02:52.460
I was studying in London at the time,

0:02:52.484,0:02:55.218
and I remember the Occupy movement there

0:02:55.242,0:02:57.740
and how it was spreading[br]from city to city,

0:02:57.764,0:02:59.893
from Madrid to New York to London,

0:02:59.917,0:03:02.472
the 99 percent against the one percent.

0:03:02.496,0:03:03.808
You know the story.

0:03:04.534,0:03:06.891
Yet when I arrived in Riga,

0:03:06.915,0:03:09.283
there were no echoes of the Occupy here.

0:03:09.897,0:03:12.147
Latvians were just putting up with it.

0:03:12.889,0:03:17.076
They "swallowed the toad,"[br]as the local saying goes.

0:03:18.202,0:03:19.964
For my doctoral research,

0:03:19.988,0:03:24.497
I wanted to study how the state-citizen[br]relationship was changing in Latvia

0:03:24.521,0:03:26.188
in the post-Soviet era,

0:03:26.212,0:03:28.531
and I had chosen the unemployment office

0:03:28.555,0:03:30.003
as my research site.

0:03:30.554,0:03:34.013
And as I arrived there[br]in that autumn of 2011,

0:03:34.037,0:03:37.833
I realized, "I am actually[br]witnessing firsthand

0:03:37.857,0:03:40.404
how the effects of crises are playing out,

0:03:40.428,0:03:44.474
and how those worst affected by it,[br]people who have lost their jobs,

0:03:44.498,0:03:46.051
are reacting to it."

0:03:47.668,0:03:52.591
So I started interviewing people[br]I met at the unemployment office.

0:03:53.954,0:03:58.668
They were all registered as job seekers[br]and hoping for some help from the state.

0:03:58.692,0:04:03.181
Yet, as I was soon discovering,[br]this help was of a particular kind.

0:04:03.205,0:04:04.757
There was some cash benefit,

0:04:04.781,0:04:09.289
but mostly state assistance came[br]in the form of various social programs,

0:04:09.313,0:04:11.747
and one of the biggest[br]of these programs was called

0:04:11.771,0:04:14.220
"Competitiveness-Raising Activities."

0:04:15.279,0:04:17.223
It was, in essence, a series of seminars

0:04:17.247,0:04:19.930
that all of the unemployed[br]were encouraged to attend.

0:04:19.954,0:04:22.844
So I started attending[br]these seminars with them.

0:04:23.975,0:04:26.627
And a number of paradoxes struck me.

0:04:27.048,0:04:28.532
So, imagine:

0:04:29.435,0:04:32.274
the crisis is still ongoing,

0:04:32.298,0:04:34.412
the Latvian economy is contracting,

0:04:34.436,0:04:36.516
hardly anyone is hiring,

0:04:36.540,0:04:38.029
and there we are,

0:04:38.053,0:04:41.076
in this small, brightly lit classroom,

0:04:41.100,0:04:43.358
a group of 15 people,

0:04:43.382,0:04:47.988
working on lists of our personal strengths[br]and weaknesses, our inner demons,

0:04:48.012,0:04:51.103
that we are told are preventing us[br]from being more successful

0:04:51.127,0:04:52.691
in the labor market.

0:04:53.727,0:04:56.614
As the largest local bank[br]is being bailed out

0:04:56.638,0:05:01.244
and the costs of this bailout are shifted[br]onto the shoulders of the population,

0:05:01.268,0:05:06.669
we are sitting in a circle[br]and learning how to breathe deeply

0:05:06.693,0:05:08.557
when feeling stressed.

0:05:08.581,0:05:11.457
(Breathes deeply)

0:05:13.265,0:05:15.716
As home mortgages are being foreclosed

0:05:15.740,0:05:18.292
and thousands of people are emigrating,

0:05:18.316,0:05:22.115
we are told to dream big[br]and to follow our dreams.

0:05:23.524,0:05:24.689
As a sociologist,

0:05:24.713,0:05:29.234
I know that social policies[br]are an important form of communication

0:05:29.258,0:05:31.180
between the state and the citizen.

0:05:31.753,0:05:33.498
The message of this program was,

0:05:33.522,0:05:35.712
to put it in the words[br]of one of the trainers,

0:05:35.736,0:05:36.902
"Just do it."

0:05:36.926,0:05:38.769
She was, of course, citing Nike.

0:05:39.478,0:05:43.622
So symbolically, the state was sending[br]a message to people out of work

0:05:43.646,0:05:47.343
that you need to be more active,[br]you need to work harder,

0:05:47.367,0:05:50.642
you need to work on yourself,[br]you need to overcome your inner demons,

0:05:50.666,0:05:52.244
you need to be more confident --

0:05:52.268,0:05:56.409
that somehow, being out of work[br]was their own personal failure.

0:05:57.038,0:05:59.616
The suffering of the crisis

0:05:59.640,0:06:02.781
was treated as this[br]individual experience of stress

0:06:02.805,0:06:04.667
to be managed in one's own body

0:06:04.691,0:06:06.939
through deep and mindful breathing.

0:06:10.019,0:06:14.020
These types of social programs[br]that emphasize individual responsibility

0:06:14.044,0:06:17.095
have become increasingly common[br]across the world.

0:06:17.119,0:06:20.876
They are part of the rise[br]of what sociologist Loïc Wacquant calls

0:06:20.900,0:06:23.693
the "neoliberal Centaur state."

0:06:23.717,0:06:25.548
Now, the centaur, as you might recall,

0:06:25.572,0:06:28.228
is this mythical creature[br]in ancient Greek culture,

0:06:28.252,0:06:29.835
half human, half beast.

0:06:29.859,0:06:34.788
It has this upper part of a human[br]and the lower part of a horse.

0:06:34.812,0:06:37.395
So the Centaur state is a state

0:06:37.419,0:06:42.251
that turns its human face[br]to those at the top of the social ladder

0:06:42.275,0:06:45.482
while those at the bottom[br]are being trampled over,

0:06:45.506,0:06:46.755
stampeded.

0:06:46.779,0:06:49.253
So top income earners and large businesses

0:06:49.277,0:06:52.827
can enjoy tax cuts[br]and other supportive policies,

0:06:52.851,0:06:55.347
while the unemployed, the poor

0:06:55.371,0:06:58.677
are made to prove themselves worthy[br]for the state's help,

0:06:58.701,0:07:00.528
are morally disciplined,

0:07:00.552,0:07:03.932
are stigmatized as irresponsible[br]or passive or lazy

0:07:03.956,0:07:05.827
or often criminalized.

0:07:07.065,0:07:10.644
In Latvia, we've had[br]such a Centaur state model

0:07:10.668,0:07:12.947
firmly in place since the '90s.

0:07:12.971,0:07:17.221
Take, for example, the flat income tax[br]that we had in place up until this year

0:07:17.245,0:07:19.596
that has been benefiting[br]the highest earners,

0:07:19.620,0:07:23.374
while one quarter of the population[br]keeps living in poverty.

0:07:23.820,0:07:29.070
And the crisis and the austerity has made[br]these kinds of social inequalities worse.

0:07:29.094,0:07:33.553
So while the capital of the banks[br]and the wealthy has been protected,

0:07:33.577,0:07:35.339
those who lost the most

0:07:35.363,0:07:38.611
were taught lessons[br]in individual responsibility.

0:07:40.097,0:07:44.442
Now, as I was talking to people[br]who I met at these seminars,

0:07:44.466,0:07:46.724
I was expecting them to be angry.

0:07:47.158,0:07:48.468
I was expecting them

0:07:48.492,0:07:51.358
to be resisting these lessons[br]in individual responsibility.

0:07:51.382,0:07:55.716
After all, the crisis was not their fault,[br]yet they were bearing the brunt of it.

0:07:56.417,0:07:59.668
But as people were sharing[br]their stories with me,

0:07:59.692,0:08:02.228
I was struck again and again

0:08:02.252,0:08:06.483
by the power of the idea[br]of responsibility.

0:08:07.596,0:08:10.085
One of the people I met was Žanete.

0:08:11.299,0:08:14.289
She had been working for 23 years

0:08:14.313,0:08:18.767
teaching sewing and other crafts[br]at the vocational school in Riga.

0:08:18.791,0:08:21.110
And now the crisis hits,

0:08:21.134,0:08:24.253
and the school is closed[br]as part of the austerity measures.

0:08:24.277,0:08:30.211
The educational system restructuring[br]was part of a way of saving public money.

0:08:30.235,0:08:33.333
And 10,000 teachers[br]across the country lose their jobs,

0:08:33.333,0:08:34.963
and Žanete is one of them.

0:08:34.963,0:08:37.896
And I know from what she's been telling me

0:08:37.920,0:08:40.662
that losing her job has put her[br]in a desperate situation;

0:08:40.686,0:08:44.879
she's divorced, she has two teenage[br]children that she's the sole provider for.

0:08:44.903,0:08:47.393
And yet, as we are talking,

0:08:47.417,0:08:51.587
she says to me that the crisis[br]is really an opportunity.

0:08:52.579,0:08:56.080
She says, "I turn 50 this year.

0:08:56.104,0:09:01.030
I guess life has really given me[br]this chance to look around, to stop,

0:09:01.054,0:09:03.429
because all these years[br]I've been working nonstop,

0:09:03.453,0:09:04.916
had no time to pause.

0:09:04.940,0:09:06.763
And now I have stopped,

0:09:06.787,0:09:11.431
and I've been given an opportunity[br]to look at everything and to decide

0:09:11.455,0:09:13.019
what it is that I want

0:09:13.043,0:09:14.855
and what it is that I don't want.

0:09:14.879,0:09:18.586
All this time, sewing, sewing,[br]some kind of exhaustion."

0:09:19.783,0:09:23.527
So Žanete is made redundant[br]after 23 years.

0:09:23.551,0:09:25.897
But she's not thinking about protesting.

0:09:25.921,0:09:29.795
She's not talking about the 99 percent[br]against the one percent.

0:09:29.819,0:09:31.748
She is analyzing herself.

0:09:32.309,0:09:35.331
And she was thinking pragmatically[br]of starting a small business

0:09:35.355,0:09:36.929
out of her bedroom

0:09:36.953,0:09:40.417
making these little souvenir dolls[br]to sell to tourists.

0:09:40.441,0:09:43.001
I also met Aivars[br]at the unemployment office.

0:09:43.025,0:09:45.140
Aivars was in his late 40s,

0:09:45.164,0:09:49.674
he had lost a job at the government agency[br]overseeing road construction.

0:09:50.333,0:09:54.415
To one of our meetings,[br]Aivars brings a book he's been reading.

0:09:54.439,0:10:01.296
It's called "Vaccination against Stress,[br]or Psycho-energetic Aikido."

0:10:02.030,0:10:05.266
Now, some of you might know[br]that aikido is a form of martial art,

0:10:05.290,0:10:07.883
so, psycho-energetic aikido.

0:10:08.780,0:10:11.556
And Aivars tells me[br]that after several months

0:10:11.580,0:10:15.131
of reading and thinking and reflecting[br]while being out of work,

0:10:15.155,0:10:20.906
he has understood that his current[br]difficulties are really his own doing.

0:10:21.310,0:10:22.860
He says to me,

0:10:22.884,0:10:24.812
"I created it myself.

0:10:24.836,0:10:27.876
I was in a psychological state[br]that was not good for me.

0:10:27.900,0:10:31.229
If a person is afraid to lose[br]their money, to lose their job,

0:10:31.253,0:10:34.260
they start getting more stressed,[br]more unsettled, more fearful.

0:10:34.284,0:10:35.875
That's what they get."

0:10:36.504,0:10:38.397
As I ask him to explain,

0:10:38.421,0:10:42.733
he compares his thoughts poetically[br]to wild horses running in all directions,

0:10:42.757,0:10:45.771
and he says, "You need to be[br]a shepherd of your thoughts.

0:10:46.757,0:10:49.035
To get things in order[br]in the material world,

0:10:49.059,0:10:51.081
you need to be a shepherd[br]of your thoughts,

0:10:51.105,0:10:54.488
because it's through your thoughts[br]that everything else gets orderly."

0:10:54.512,0:10:56.756
"Lately," he says,[br]"I have clearly understood

0:10:56.780,0:10:59.289
that the world around me,[br]what happens to me,

0:10:59.313,0:11:02.889
people that enter in my life ...[br]it all depends directly on myself."

0:11:02.913,0:11:08.035
So as Latvia is going through[br]this extreme economic experiment,

0:11:08.059,0:11:11.201
Aivars says it's his way of thinking[br]that has to change.

0:11:11.225,0:11:15.936
He's blaming himself for what[br]he's going through at the moment.

0:11:16.799,0:11:21.670
So taking responsibility[br]is, of course, a good thing, right?

0:11:21.694,0:11:23.852
It is especially meaningful

0:11:23.876,0:11:26.455
and morally charged[br]in a post-Soviet society,

0:11:26.479,0:11:30.012
where reliance on the state[br]is seen as this unfortunate heritage

0:11:30.036,0:11:31.341
of the Soviet past.

0:11:31.888,0:11:34.940
But when I listen to Žanete[br]and Aivars and to others,

0:11:34.964,0:11:38.491
I also thought[br]how cruel this question is --

0:11:38.515,0:11:40.419
"Where is your responsibility?" --

0:11:40.443,0:11:41.667
how punishing.

0:11:41.691,0:11:45.748
Because, it was working as a way[br]of blaming and pacifying people

0:11:45.772,0:11:48.044
who were hit worst by the crisis.

0:11:48.068,0:11:51.612
So while Greeks were out in the streets,[br]Latvians swallowed the toad,

0:11:51.636,0:11:54.939
and many tens of thousands emigrated,

0:11:54.963,0:11:57.755
which is another way[br]of taking responsibility.

0:12:00.009,0:12:03.293
So the language, the language[br]of individual responsibility,

0:12:03.317,0:12:05.699
has become a form of collective denial.

0:12:06.342,0:12:09.448
As long as we have social policies[br]that treat unemployment

0:12:09.472,0:12:11.243
as individual failure

0:12:11.267,0:12:15.187
but we don't have enough funding[br]for programs that give people real skills

0:12:15.211,0:12:16.788
or create workplaces,

0:12:16.812,0:12:19.993
we are blind of the[br]policymakers' responsibility.

0:12:20.017,0:12:23.864
As long as we stigmatize the poor[br]as somehow passive or lazy

0:12:23.888,0:12:26.484
but don't give people real means[br]to get out of poverty

0:12:26.508,0:12:28.030
other than emigrating,

0:12:28.054,0:12:31.948
we are in denial of[br]the true causes of poverty.

0:12:31.972,0:12:33.821
And in the meantime,

0:12:33.845,0:12:35.116
we all suffer,

0:12:36.060,0:12:40.275
because social scientists have shown[br]with detailed statistical data

0:12:40.299,0:12:44.868
that there are more people with both[br]mental and physical health problems

0:12:44.892,0:12:49.091
in societies with higher levels[br]of economic inequality.

0:12:49.115,0:12:54.534
So social inequality is apparently bad[br]for not only those with least resources

0:12:54.558,0:12:55.746
but for all of us,

0:12:55.770,0:12:58.256
because living in a society[br]with high inequality

0:12:58.280,0:13:02.459
means living in a society[br]with low social trust and high anxiety.

0:13:02.928,0:13:04.107
So there we are.

0:13:04.131,0:13:06.017
We're all reading self-help books,

0:13:06.041,0:13:07.749
we try to hack our habits,

0:13:07.773,0:13:09.611
we try to rewire our brains,

0:13:09.635,0:13:11.340
we meditate.

0:13:11.364,0:13:13.732
And it helps, of course, in a way.

0:13:14.414,0:13:17.100
Self-help books help us feel more upbeat.

0:13:17.124,0:13:22.058
Meditation can help us feel[br]more connected to others spiritually.

0:13:22.947,0:13:24.588
What I think we need

0:13:24.612,0:13:29.641
is as much awareness of what connects[br]us to one another socially,

0:13:29.665,0:13:32.576
because social inequality hurts us all.

0:13:32.600,0:13:36.441
So we need more[br]compassionate social policies

0:13:36.465,0:13:39.684
that are aimed less at moral education

0:13:39.708,0:13:44.246
and more at promotion[br]of social justice and equality.

0:13:44.270,0:13:45.469
Thank you.

0:13:45.493,0:13:47.997
(Applause)