tv Dambisa Moyo Al Jazeera June 5, 2020 11:00pm-12:01am +03
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on senegal sinking villages. save you many i really really not getting anywhere near it. this is al jazeera i'm telling you now because with a check on your world headlines the number of people out of work in the u.s. has unexpectedly dropped new figures for the month of may indicate that the american economy could be starting to recover from the coronavirus pandemic unemployment had hit a record high of 14.7 percent but in the last month 2 and a half 1000000 jobs were created in leisure and hospitality construction and education president donald trump said the figures indicated what he called the end of the coronavirus crisis when we had a problem we were able to cut it off stop it just like this stop it
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keep everyone. keep them away keep them together away uninfected and we saved millions of us and now we're opening and we're opening with a bang and we've been talking about the this is better than a v. this is a rocket ship president trump has been criticized for comments he made over george floyd who was killed in police custody last month kimberly halkett is in washington with more well he was talking in the rose garden about the economy he also transition to the social unrest in the united states the cynically say that he's done more for the black community when it comes to jobs and other programs than any other president but it was this comment that really touched off a nerve take a listen hopefully george is looking down right now and saying this is a great thing that's happening for a country there's a great day for him it's a great day for everybody this is a great day for everybody this is
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a great great day. in terms of equality now the problem with this 1st of all is that it's a way he was speaking on behalf of a black man a black man who is now no longer with us given the fact that he had a white policeman kneeling on his neck and that was the cause of death according to the family's autopsy so this is not sitting well with the millions of african-americans and others who are protesting on the streets for him to try and bring about change and racial equality or inequality do exist trying to bring about equality in the united states never is goes over very well when a white man speaks for a black man but given the fact that there is social unrest that is spread not just across this country but canada europe these comments are not being particularly well received as george floyd's family attends a memorial service for him in north carolina the mayor of washington d.c. has sent a message to president trump and a very big one morial bowzer has renamed
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a street right in front of the white house a block wives matter plaza and how the slogan painted in huge letters along the road it was done to send a message at the city's stands with the protest movement it comes days after donald trump ordered the forceful removal of peaceful demonstrators who had gathered outside the white house in other news forces loyal to libya's u.n. back government of qatar who know we're let's cut if i have to last major stronghold in western libya have to his forces have been using the city as a launch pad for their offensive on the capital tripoli for the last 14 months on thursday government forces regain full control of the capital. brazil has reported a new record of 1473 coronavirus deaths in the past 24 hours it now has the 3rd highest number of fatalities in the world overtaking italy this fight this beaches and parks in rio de janeiro have reopened as long as social distancing is being carried out by the public president joy of also narrow called any protesters
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opposing his agenda terrorists and delinquents and encourage public security forces to act swiftly against going beyond the limits of the law a protester in mexico has set fire to a police officer during a demonstration against police brutality and police protest of writing by the hearo on thursday after a new man was after a man excuse me was found beaten to death hours after he was arrested the construction worker was detained by police for not wearing a mask in public the u.n. says more than $1300.00 people have been killed during fighting in the democratic republic of congo in the past 8 months various conflicts are underway in the country involving a number of armed groups and government forces violence has forced more than half a 1000000 people to flee their homes in just 9 months those are the headlines head to head is next.
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from the bronx at vote in britain thanks. to the election of donald trump a teacher will govern our lay. people around the world rebelling against the law. and increasingly turning to the political extremes so what lies behind the recent rise in populism and authoritarianism. my guest tonight is an economist who blames the political establishment in her new book edge of chaos why democracy is failing to deliver economic growth and how to fix it she believes democracy is in crisis and has some pretty controversial suggestions for how to say i'm in the house and i've come to the oxford union to go head to head with economist and best selling
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author. why she seems to blame democracy for falling economic growth and whether her plan to save democracy by giving some voters more power and influence than others could end up killing it instead. tonight i'll be joined by a pedophile author of the production of money and one of only a handful of economists who correctly predicted the financial crisis jamie whyte director of research at the institute of economic affairs. and they form a new zealand politician and philosophy electra and jason pickel and i'm for apologist at the london school of economics and author of the divide a brief guide to global inequality and its solution. ladies and gentlemen please welcome dambisa moyo. business 1st book dead
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a cold wave when she called you the problem helping the foreign aid was actually making the poor a she's a former goldman sachs banker and explain sultan at the. dummies are more welcome to advantage there. one of the central premises of your book is that the popular discontent that we see across the west right now for example the brics vote the election of donald trump the rise of populist parties is driven by the failure of governments to deliver economic growth yet many experts pollsters people who studied this stuff would say bricks it wasn't driven by economics trump wasn't elected by the poor or the left behind it's a complete myth that had much more to do with culture and identity issues which you don't really address in the book well i don't carry on with my doctorate that i completed here at oxford you know a while ago isn't in economics and so i think very much see these issues a challenge through that lens i'm not dismissing that there might be other you know aspects and i'll leave that to people who are focused on those areas to to make the
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case for that i am concerned about the economics and we do know that real wages have come down virtually every developed country over the past 30 years social mobility has declined income inequality has widened and so the threat of a lack of participation in the neighborhoods could people be simply given up on and work all these aspects have created and give them things like trump and bricks. get that that's your prism and that's what specialism doesn't make it correct the majority of americans earning less than $50000.00 a year voted for hillary clinton not donald trump well my vote is in the rust belt states who said the economy is the most important issue for the country went with hillary on bricks in income class were not predictors of vote in fact views of multiculturalism of feminism the death penalty was actually a greater predictor of people's views on briggs let me let me clarify a couple of things so 1st of all you know a lot of what you've just said certainly culture issues around immigration which have been basically. sort of put forward as the main argument for break that and
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for for the rights of trump and populism more generally across europe to me are masking a more fundamental problem which still has its roots in economics if people feel that their lives are improving their future generations lives on. proving i would argue that we would see much more stability we have seen much more stability in those periods a good job than donald trump also one of the last from rich people the need to hold on people don't you wonder how do you hold it i'll give you a juggler i'll give you a start of a day wages i'll give you a statistic that illustrates the story as you were aware of the general high level numbers that hillary won the popular vote by 3000000 if you take out the new york i'm not about the state just the metropolitan city of new york and if you take out the metropolitan city of los angeles not california donald trump won the vote by over 3000000 votes that is how split this country is people in new york city and in los angeles are essentially very liberal tend to be much more wealthy and tend to be deriving their welfare and in terms of their living standards but from
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a global societal and unlike you perhaps i take the view is no point in me making arguments that i have no basis in fact or knowledge to make you seem to treat growth as some sort of magic bullet and yet if you look at some of the biggest problems facing the world today problems you recognize in the book income inequality climate change more and more economic growth is not only fail to solve those problems many would argue experts would say it is in fact a driver of those very same problems would you accept i would not and i would not accept it because i think one of the key points that people tend to miss is not that we have not gained from a model where we have depended on growth we have failed to redistribute that growth in a way that actually enhances the lives of many people around the world if i think specifically of some of the examples of this there are many policies today that are should have short term gains particularly western societies but have very deep long term problematic consequences trying to give a good example trade protectionism the fact that the united states through farm
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subsidies and europe through the common culture policy have locked out the goods that are produced in places like africa and south america have essentially created an environment where we have not only created more and more and. people but we've also created a fed into issues of political instability i'm saying deal with the real world not your aspiration noble aspiration which is x.-men will grow if there are experiments more grow every january they're putting out reports and saying the world is growing we know that i think the estimate for this year is that the 8 wealthiest people in the world have more wealth than the bottom so we're in agreement that rose doesn't inequality in fact increase i was very clear i said that the point is not about growth the fact is that how we do we distribute that growth and on climate change you talk about the edge of chaos but what about climate chaos is an irresponsible to talk about growth growth growth given experts like kevin anderson the center for climate change research of said continuing with economic growth over the coming 2 decades is incompatible with meeting our international obligations of climate
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change well there's a whole literature which obviously haven't cited or perhaps you've not seen which is focused specifically on what we call green growth there's massive discussion around this and in fact you talk about china india china is quite a lead ahead in terms of trying to we of course there have you been there recently beijing has more solar panels than most of the other countries and they are i mean i could go as environmental protection index made formulated by your university puts trying to 120 out of 180 countries in the world listen china is the 2nd largest economy in g.d.p. terms it's ranked number 100 per capita incomes terms this is one of the poorest countries on that metric the notion that somehow they should wake up and they have an economy that's functioning at the highest levels is absurd the united states even in the last 20 years they've had cities where there's been mass pollution just flint michigan is not 20 years ago where they were polluted water and the notion that you're putting all this pressure on china which is still a nascent economy in many respects to me is 40 and russia you cited china things to
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use my real growth i'm just going to agree. you don't advocate for green growth i sure do many terms of climate having read my book just how my view on it might not be there is a question i gather that was you may have just learned it is a list of attorneys. so let's have a test on your book has a whole section i've mentioned multiple times in there 4 times the words climate change appear in this debate 4 times what pages out of 3 that i can give you the very very large it's only 4 and so all i'm saying is that it's great please do go home to me now tell me now though yes what is your position on growth and climate and summarize it for as innocent a well i as i said i think the framing is around green growth we have 90 percent of the world's population that lives in the emerging markets 90 percent of those people including myself who comes from africa have been assured have been encouraged that we can live like americans live like british people you if you decide you want to go and put the genie back in the bottle good luck you want to go to the panel on this just before i do want one last question i must ask this to you you were working goldman sachs back in 2008 when. their tenure you were there in
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2000 and at the time of the financial crash that goldman sachs helped cause which killed growth many more are you really the right person to be writing a book about growth given the association with goldman sachs i don't understand the connection the question is if you work at institution you're part of the institution that did so much damage to the global economy and then you come in and said these are the solutions for growth the biggest hit to growth came from the banks and from goldman sachs you know what you know what you're exhibiting is a pure lack of understanding and how the global economy works. so let me just like let me if i mean. for you many governments not just this government in this country but also governments in the united states is a good example of this they have a clear and stated policy of cold housing for this is a policy where they deliberately encourage everybody to own a house it doesn't matter what your income is in your ability this is your going to
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just go down and say great i'm not to become was to blame we're all to blame because we essentially we go many armed men have a special role to play i think to put a very simple question does goldman sachs have a special role to play they paid a $5000000000.00 fine and said we. institute. pay fines i'm trying to help you become a bit more educated in this appeals. so to be understanding i'm not just saying that we all have taken responsibility and you want me to give you a one liner only your so does it only start to have a social responsibility you know there's no special responsibility ok let's go to the panel question. to join this very interesting discussion i'm joined by. the author of the production of money one of a handful of economists the newspapers often the ones to correctly predict the financial crisis what do you when you see hear the arguments about the importance of growth as as as presented by them these are both here and in the book what you have. to be so you said government should be making formulating public policy policy requires boundaries capital hates these goldman sachs hates these
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it wants to go where it wants to go and we can make the biggest profits and you are advocating essentially a globalized economy where boundaries won't matter where governments well that's where public policy will not have an effect because markets will decide and i find that that that is a really deep hypocrisy in that you're trying you're on the one hand trying to blame governments on the other hand you are mostly in markets making the most important decisions that affect millions of people across the world but yes i'd like to respond so what is absolutely clear is that i am a supporter of this idea of globalization the movement of trade in goods and services movement of capital but also the movement of people immigrant as an immigrant however however we know that what is defined and explained in textbooks does not actually happen in real life because public policy and imperatives and tradeoffs and real politic the fact that especially democratic governments want to
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win elections means that these things are not apply in real life jamie wants with us who's director of research instead of economic affairs the also a former new zealand politician philosophy lecturer david afterwards they were out of one of britain's. naturalist access anyone who thinks you can have infinite growth in a finer environment is either a madman or an economist. well infinite of course not you can't have it but i really couldn't agree more with them the the era of globalization imperfect as it being has seen billions of people lifted from poverty it's really been the most astonishing period of success in human history in 18040 percent of the world's population lived on today's money $2.00 a day or less today it's about 8 percent i think and it's coming down down down that is a fantastic achievement which we should be celebrating and all these funny little i
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mean i find it astonishing that people are hostile towards the processes that have brought about what is close to a miracle. ok let me bring in let me just bring in jason nichols waiting very patiently the anthropologist of the london school of economics author of the divide a brief guide to global inequality and solutions i'm interested in the climate because some people are very forcefully rejected the idea that there is a clash there you can focus on green growth what do you think about that it's interesting because the only reports that were published by international situations on green growth were done in 2012. sustainability with interesting is that they did not cite any substantial models to justify this idea that richard can manage to grow while at the same time massively reduced in material consumption of emissions down to the carbon budget or to be celsius since then fortunately there have been a number of key studies which i write a lot about and literally every single one of the models that has been developed shows that green growth is not a thing it's literally physically impossible to have exponential growth of the same time as reducing material consumptions and reducing emissions fast enough to stay
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with them to the carbon budget and to me it's fundamentally irresponsible to have a book out there promoting endless growth in rich nations where it's not necessary in the face of all the research we have plans for about who was promoted in this group in developed countries that's not my book i don't know whose book that is because it's very clear it's very clear in your book that you make it would be absurd and i mean i'm not in your book you're talking about the united states you're talking about nations like you can you talk about britain talking about trying to trying to say these people are upset because there's not enough growth you're trying to say. i'm here and i went into a very big thing i want to be here to defend myself. and i don't worry about the united states growing at 3 percent i worry about emerging countries i talk about this very explicitly about emerging countries growing below 7 percent you need to grow at least 7 percent to double per capita incomes in one generation i'm desperately worried when south africa russia brazil are growing at 12 percent i am worried that india is going for 5 percent. only to the extent
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that public policy is. going to run out on mr about public policy. but the most provocative chapter of your book that's got the most attention of the reviews of people who read it so far is the chapter 7 which is called blueprint for a new democracy in it you talk about various proposals fan form and you can you quote you say quote radical reform of democracy is needed to save it from decay one of your most contentious proposals is to have voters in the west pass a test a knowledge test a civics test in order to gain the right to vote surely you must see how tests of that kind could be deployed probably would be deployed to disenfranchise paul or those with less access to education minority communities absolutely and i talk about that i mean obviously i am black obviously i'm a woman an obviously i'm from africa if i were to proport and to support types of regimes or systems that actually do not allow people to vote based on a whole list of adjectives race gender wealth land ownership i'd be the 1st person
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to be disenfranchised would be crazy and i've been accused of being crazy i'm not that crazy to suggest that i should not be allowed to vote you and tell you to be just to be clear as immigrants i'm sure there are many immigrants in this room they would tell you if you want to be a citizen in this country you want to be citizen in essence you have to pass the test it is already the case so i don't know if people aren't aware of this and it doesn't matter it doesn't realize that you only try to eliminate the argument i said it doesn't matter what your income or your origin or your race or gender is when you're an immigrant that shows up in these countries you have to take a test all i'm suggesting is the test is designed to to reward people for engagement you mentioned reward many people would say voting is a right not a reward for going aren't you don't think i can and a lot of and 2nd percent participation rate doesn't mean a lot are 2 or 3 percent. across the average across europe in the united states 50 percent 30 percent are people who are low income we do not want that such
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a way so the idea isn't you make it harder for them to vote by putting into your hold on hold on of we don't you don't understand the book once again i don't understand because the argument was very. as well yeah you're probably. the i mean. just just deal with the discrimination part you say you're a black woman from africa then why propose a test when in the us deep south literacy test were explicitly used to disenfranchise black because once again you're not you're not appreciating what i'm trying to do which of which there are 2 goals number one we want to increase participation rate we want to ensure that the ideal of one man one vote which is essentially the mantra that everybody's been told for many years about labor democracy who want that to hold as many people must vote but we also want to make sure that the people who are voting have some good knowledge of what exactly we're both voting on the day after break that i'm sure many people know this apparently the most googled term is was what is brics or what is. well it may be it may be but
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it is you know what in a world of fake news even urban legends become fact and i think that whatever the case in a world of news. and lead times because they are fact i don't mean they become true what i mean is that it goes around as you said urban legend start quoted like myself and i was very clear. i don't know it to be untrue do you know it to be untrue with certainty yes so you google did a study of 1000 people. you're going to extrapolate from a 1000 people to all of the people ok let's all be over the brink so that's. why i don't start with one of the question is the point of the matter is i was trying to explain to you that the book is designed to target 2 things yes participation rates and to ensure that we have a knowledge of god across let's deal with the more controversial proposed you say that don't just people should pass a test the people who are more qualified or more knowledgeable should have more vote or more influence you say quote 3 tiers of voters the unqualified the standard qualified voter and the highly qualified voter in a world of bricks and trump and populism in the far right you really think giving
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some people more votes than others based on education will stop populism or help populist ok so let me take a step back and explain exactly why. this chapter 7 is doing chapter 7 offers 10 proposals these proposals are not supposed to be taken in wholesale because countries and to different levels of democracy but also very importantly they all have some precedent somewhere in the world when the world so you're picking on a perspective a point around this question of ranking voters that already exist already in the united states in the democratic party superdelegates have a bigger weight in switzerland there is a massive movement by the young parliament there to actually increase the participation in fact the weight of young people between 18 and 40 so that's double the weight of you over to go crazy if certain people get more power more vote based on their educational qualifications you know you think it will increase or not listening i nobody said anything about education when they get the test is based on
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participation not on education you're taking sentences out that i have a broader context of imagery to in context preach to a woman waiting could also be tied to one's professional qualifications such as certificate as a doctor teacher lawyer employment status level of educational attainment on the assumption that excelling in these domains makes one more likely to make well informed choices in the voting and once again i'm thinking i am explaining if you actually read the paragraph before that you'll see that i was essentially saying here is how the argument goes the argument would be that you could have votes based on education and if you read the part after that paragraph i quickly dispel that ok let's go to a panel to come in where i was just to just remind this of why we had the french revolution and white of us pain the rights of man and wife mary wilson's. vindication of the rights of women but i think i found the book disappointing in that it was shell it's true that participation rates have fallen but i think the question to be asked is why have participation rates for it and that's not asked in
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the book instead you're trying to tell patronize the public tell them that then they haven't got it right and they need to be tested in trade. in order to vote instead of asking why they're not participate in the not participate because they find the markets invisible i'm not accountable remember mock it for making decisions that affect their livelihoods jamie shaking his hand why they. don't want to be diverted by this funny idea that markets make decisions people make decisions i think that there is a problem with those ignorance since each vote has very little influence on the outcome of the election it's not worth investing a lot of time and effort to get the the knowledge you would need to be informed voters and i think it's very interesting there are lots of people come up with ideas about how to deal with this i'm not actually all that keen on your specific ones not all of them but i think it's a very worthy area of inquiry and we don't want this kind of hysterical reaction to any proposal that it's undemocratic or all democratic systems have undemocratic
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elements in them otherwise they wouldn't function at all i think we've got way too much democracy you know in the sense that far too many decisions are collectivized and they're made by people ill informed and it's wonderful to see somebody trying to engage with these issues i went around sort tonight obviously jason we have too much democracy jamie says. so i actually think we've done yourself a disservice to be so because your last chapter is full of these interesting proposals about gerrymandering about media regulation etc etc but then you give this kind of absurd proposal about vote about where the voting which overshadows all of that and no one's talking about any of your actual good reforms so i think you probably renounce the position and then talk about the other. who would have heard about gerrymandering on campaign finance i mean what i want to be inoffensive and i want to make you cry when i want to make yours i think the biggest issue is about democracy you actually failed to address it all and that is this if we're talking about the global economy we have to look at the institutions that are
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governing global economic policy like the world bank and the i.m.f. which we're voting power is monopolized by the u.s. and a handful of rich nations where the global south which has 85 percent of the world's population has less than 50 percent. vote on crucial decisions and macro holes in the fact that i written extensively about this my book dead aid was specifically targeting international institutions and the fact that the put the policy making decisions were centralized at a particular particular place where i'm very much we moved from from recipient countries you say in the book you re critical of professional politicians as are many people and you talk about how to raise the standard of people in public office that they should have experience outside of politics of real world jobs how do you feel about the president of the united states to the lectern a c.e.o. billionaire make america more stable less corrupt and so i don't necessarily like the way the president talks about women and fact i don't like the way talks about women at all i don't like a whole host of other things but all i was day is the american economy is functioning this day if they're getting stock market highs all the time their
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unemployment rate not just for the average of the society but also for minority groups is that all time lows there are some big concerns that they're dealing with but we all have to accept that americans have made enormous sacrifices and unfortunately until european governments start to take more responsibility for what they have to pay and more generally we start to feel a bit sympathetic for what has happened to that an economy and that country i think we're being a bit too simplistic ok on that note we're going to take a pause join us for part 2 of a very lively discussion here with. we're going to talk about china democracy development and we're going to hear from a very patient audience here in the oxford union after the break. mass protests forcing the governments but are we seeing the truth this time. we follow journalists on the frontline. piece. pre-press committed to
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returning the front police officers pointing guns at journalists to say stop hong kong frankton friction this truth is in any way on al-jazeera. this is al-jazeera i'm 13 obligato with a check on your world headlines the u.s. unemployment rate has unexpectedly dropped the according to new figures for may which indicate that the american economy could be starting to recover from the coronavirus pandemic 2 and a half 1000000 jobs were added in leisure and hospitality construction and education causing unemployment to fall to 13.3 percent when we had a problem we were able to cut it off stop it just like this stop it keep everyone. inside keep them away keep them together away uninfected and we
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saved millions of lives and now we're opening and we're opening with a bang and we've been talking about the v. this is better than a v. this is a rocket ship 2 police officers in the u.s. have been suspended after video were murdered them shoving a 75 year old man to the ground the elderly man is in a serious but stable condition in hospital the police are coming under increased scrutiny over the tactics they're using to ring on to racism protests the wave of demonstrations were sparked by the death of african american george floyd whilst in police custody. a protester in mexico has set fire to a police officer during a demonstration against police brutality and to police protests erupted in guadalajara on thursday after a man was found beaten to death hours after he was arrested the construction worker was detained by police for not wearing a mask in public. forces loyal to libya's u.n.
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back government have captured that whole now for have taught his last major stronghold in western libya after his forces have been using this city is the launch pad for their offensive on the capital tripoli for the last 14 months on thursday government forces regained full control of the capital brazil has reported a new record of $1473.00 coronavirus deaths and 24 hours it now has the 3rd highest number of fatalities in the world overtaking italy despite this beaches on parks in rio de janeiro have reopened as long as social distancing is carried out by the public president also there or has called any protesters opposing his agenda terrorists as well as delinquents those are the headlines on al-jazeera it's back to head to head next then it's the news hour at the top of the hour i'll see you then thanks for watching but i. thank you but. i'm here in the oxford union with
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bestselling author economist she got a new book out the edge of chaos. what i didn't get reading your book is that you heap praise on liberal democracy on capitalism you see want to save it from some of the problems that undoubtedly faces markets but then you also are full of praise on china and you talk about how quote economic growth is a prerequisite for democracy not the other way around so is democracy i'm wondering something you think that gets in the way of growth and prosperity. so it's a brilliant question that effort i've talked about there's a lot of fantastic research out about this because ultimately we want a democracy that functions and survives. which is a professor in the united states talks about this is about a model that predicts how long democracy will survive based on the per capita incomes in a country and its arguments very which i subscribe to this very basic which is that if you don't have a middle class that actually is participating in the in the process that's voting
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then you end up with with a very narrow set of voters and that is a system we don't want to support we want to have a system where the population is a critical mass to hold the government accountable and they've argued in previous work my book trade for example talked about the failure of democracy in africa precisely because of this point our governments very rationally are able to pay attention to our foreign aid because they don't have to rely on the critical mass at home and so there are there is i believe a very clear correlation so i know you don't like simplistic you're some are christians. but are you saying. the so the chinese model the undemocratic authoritarian model is better for growth for the economy than a liberal democratic model at this moment in our history ok so once again i do have to explain they're they're essentially you're comparing apples and oranges the proverbial apples and oranges these are 2 very different ideological systems western ideology puts the individual as paramount the most important entity is the
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individual china's model is based on prioritizing society the entity of society as the most important entity the reason this import is this is critically important is that there are enormous social costs from a model where you have an individual as is paramount many of those costs we've kind of swept under under the rug population growth so the idea that i can have as many children as i want that's great that's my freedom that's my right i'm not impinging on me but he's right in theory but in practice we know issues of climate change issues of of of green growth and trade offs around growth but also in terms of health care there are many ways in which this idea of i can do whatever i like actually does impinge on society's ability to grow and transform the chinese model is not at the end of the day the only model and the best model because it also has its own costs but this is the trade off that we're dealing with a little twisted in a little human rights abuses it's a dictatorship well china is also the largest foreign lender to the united states and so for all objects and perhaps sitting human rights i'm just saying i guess i'm
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just saying that you should not exist to be very good if you're in a chinese very very very lonely. for about how 1st of all we can go into history and talk about suffrage 971 was the 1st time that in switzerland women had the right to vote we can talk about the civil rights movement which is only in the 1960 s. in the united states so that's not all get hot and bothered about where china is china is on a path it does have to do a lot of work in the democratic process it's already underway many democratic on the way most people say it's going the other direction. first for law 1st. if you go to china and spend time there which i have there have democratic elections at the may or level there is innovation already happening in that political system and i would just really excel to into law you've met with a vision here that is allowed i think it's very this is this is the problem i want to avoid because we're very good at spending time talking about countries that are blatantly non-democratic when actually this book and i think where the focus really needs to be and where the problems have come just in terms of the rights of
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populism and also the financial crisis these are in the west that solve the problem tell me your focus was of the west it was the developing world yes it is ultimately because public policy comes from the west you talk about you know not giving the west a pause most of the guests on the show actually many of them have been from western governments i've held them to account but when you say china is masterfully executing a carefully choreographed plan for growth which is largely attributable to its political system it does sound like you're endorsing the political system which is a terrific dictatorship i'm merely saying we cannot pretend that over 300000000 people have been moved out of poverty in 30 years in china the bottom line is that has been done and no other country in history or pre-history has ever been able to do what the chinese have done i don't think we should spend a lot of time pointing fingers at china you know physician heal thyself position is our economy is and i know but little of it is going to get in the way as i get your call i said i said our is a fundamentally and our political economy i said economies and put if you let me finish economies and political environment are under siege right now they are in
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the u.k. in the us in the us yes. i'll give you we have a senior leader we have is a burning house i'm a big critic will be the less risky but while we're on the train your level don't lose yourself voter participation rates are low number one number 2 money money has seeped into the political in this is a bizarre argument that's all we're jumping on well that then you have national weather and good vote away then because i must give you my me money money has seeped into the political process ok 158 alan disagree with everything you're saying i'm saying offering we're going to show you that i'm offering a perspective that's focused on our own democracies where we had. populism we have a gala dinner and then i also have a job. we've got hung garion we go to hungary and prime minister or ban talking about terry exactly how russia $100.00 using 40 percent of the energy into this country but this is class a result you say because of something you wrote you're a very influential woman your best selling author the reason we invited you on the show your millions of dollars in social media when you say china's contemporary
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economic success is largely attributable to its political system is that now some might say that's a response to because it sounds like you're saying that's the system you need for growth but it's a good system let me ask lane what i think the virtues of that system are that system is a long term system we have this fundamental schism between the long term economic challenges and headwinds that the global economy is facing led by developed countries things like debt etc productivity declines versus the short termism imbedded in the electoral process in the united states have elections every 2 years this is incredibly destructive and creates this mismatch between long term economic challenges and short termism the political system the chinese model doesn't have to deal with that they're not seduced by today's voter or they don't need to seduce today's voter in order to remain in often political office ok let's go to our panel jason pickel is an anthropologist at one school of economics when you hear me talk about china in that way does that make sense the long term ism. from this argument very frustrating and the reason is because the book is basically about the value of liberal free markets and you say that we need we need more of them but then you go
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into detail about how you know you are the new deal us it's exactly the opposite economic ideology so with the words actually do you follow most of it's quite confusing universally true. so i think it's pretty obvious because the new what you describe the new deal manhattan institute. sort of manhattan project china what they have in common they have the government playing an incredibly important role not a governmental big government not seduced by short term voters every 2 years or every electoral cycle that is what the common things there are perhaps not an allocation . decisions are based on long term thinking long term planning issues which focus on future generations and when they actually targeted the wrong enemy it's not it's not democracy that's a problem because again the new deal happened in a democratic society so the market is sort of it's not democracy that's part of what the problem is here is free market capitalism which is short term assist and so the. solution i have 10 very near 10 very clear problems with democracy we don't
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and fortune don't have the time for me to go through with them the notion that democracy is not a problem is mad it's crazy we're looking at across europe right now we've got masses of populism. a whole host of theories rhetoric my hopes were here at the moment ideology you actually support and i'm going to the 1st of all i'm told i've never got a story i didn't have to anyway but can i just because that is at the crux of the matter he's just asked the question i want to know what ideological model she supports i am not an idealogue let me be absolutely clear i know you really do it so none of your ideological he rightly pointed out that i'm not ideological obviously a lot of the line is that there are definitely benefits and merits from the capitalist western system there are also very clear benefits from china jamie democracy is a problem not a problem when it comes to economic growth where do you stand on. well i one of the 1st agree with the basic position that democracy isn't required precursor of economic growth and in fact if you look at the economic growth that occurred in the
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united states and britain in the 19th century which was basically founded on institutions such as private property in the rule of law and so on those institutions got came into place in the british legal system prior to anything that we would today call democracy and then democracy came later so the basic point i think holds what's going on in china is indeed completely different and that isn't a rule of law liberal democracy type system but i think that the main point is it's see that democracy is not required because the end indeed can't get in the way for the kinds of reasons that debases pointed out that it instead of setting up the institutions required for a stable and developing economy you get kind of. politicians doing deals with the electorate in a certain sense of the short term in ways that are destructive. but by the way one so that i am an idealogue. i didn't say that the most popular president of all time was received felt and that was because employment was high because people had jobs
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people had decent incomes and they had public services and they loved that and they participated and they voted what we have had since 971 and liberalization near liberalism is a people have found themselves becoming disempowered because there are forces beyond their control beyond the control of the governments of parliaments run fashionable it's because parliaments don't make the decisions anymore where you stand on china is not a political or economic model worthy of it as a nation here it's a thought authoritarian it's socialist communist people are educated the people are how is that like many governments in africa that people have cared for and the markets manage but there's a lot of social unrest which is repressed brutally by the government i think it's not very surprising that we're looking very fondly back in the 930 s. where actually the civil rights movement was just gaining momentum in the united states and yeah it's all well and good to remember those good old days but guess what people like me were not even allowed to vote at that time so i mean it might
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be if might it might already be in here and yeah you said it not i so there are significant weaknesses in the democratic process this is absolutely the case i mean the notion that we can sit here take foreign direct investment from china trade with china have china lend our government enormous amount of money and then turn around and say well this is the big bad wolf and we don't want to actually deal with them i think it's possible ok let's go to our audience here in the oxford union. raise your hands wait for the money for him to come to you. it's very much if i can go back to the question around the way to devoting. the south africa to post apartheid south african constitutional court said that the vote of every and each and every citizen is a badge of dignity and of personal quite literally says that everyone. counts no given the voting is not just an instrumental exercise it's also an exercise in personal self was saying that some people can vote others can vote and we're small isn't that just fundamentally offensive well you know i have
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a sense of what you mean by offensive i mean i'm not really interested in emotional reactions i'm more interested in something that's quite sustainable this is about engagement it's how it is that we expect citizens to engage in the process i think that we need to explore everything i was very clear that i do not think that this type of with voting works in a general election i consider myself pretty well read and pretty engaged and quite interested in what's going on in the world but i would not argue that i actually know what the best use or what the best decisions around health care system should be and i do believe that if i spoke to doctors nurses or people who work in the medical facilities they'll be better able to tell me dummies of doctors. i know which are going to say. that i understand you or they want to have a public health care system maybe they're in the back yes you thank you from your comments it sounds like you make a you're making a very. broad distinction between governments and private companies and the free market is this distinction reasonable and that for example if we were to limit
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protections that that government force wouldn't private companies like goldman sachs operate like governments so it is absolutely the case that we now live in a world where corporations but not just corporations wealthy individuals are taking a bigger responsibility and bigger role in the participation of public what things were used to be the purview of only public affairs public governments think about the gates foundation think about many other foundations around the world that are delivering health care outcomes outside of the electoral process education etc so these lines are certainly becoming more and more blurred i personally think that we are moving more into a world without requiring that not only because shareholders are demanding it but other stakeholders and communities are saying if you're going to set up a company in our backyard we want you to help with infrastructure want you to build schools we want you to invest in health care and it is in the red jacket you've mentioned this quite a few times debates in dialogues in africa at the moment when they talk about
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political and business politics as you so succinctly put it different people are taking part rich the powerful why upperclassman are part of the conversation so what do you suggest needs to happen for africans to take back control of the dialogue the conversation and decide what happens in our countries well one of the most interesting questions i received when i was marketing did aid was if i if i were given a 1000000000 dollars what would i do with it and my answer was i would invest it all in a p.r. organization because as far as i'm concerned the aid movement has been tremendously successful for 60 years in convincing africans that they're not worth being part is today having a seat around the table they're not that smart they're not that good and they're always going to be a drag on the global economy the narrative of africa is as been in my lifetime one of corruption disease war and poverty over the past 10 years there's been a significant shift with the arrival of china in many. other countries but the and those countries do have their issues but the notion that anyone would think that there's been a positive narrative around what the stories are all africa is just for hardy let's
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go back to just last moment here in the work of a policy for we do believe it can contribute to addressing challenges like inequality and redistribution. in the almost 10 years since your book in regions like africa we've seen. tax revenues of quadrupled deaths from diseases like malaria hiv hogged and we've also seen poverty rates come down and aid has made a contribution and we have seen democracy move forward in fits and starts so the idea that you know you continue to hold those using you would actually. be even stronger is hard to understand can you explain yeah sure i'm so 2 things 1st of all i don't know what entirely know what they are some aid budget comes from but many agencies that are all oprah liberated across africa are heavily reliant on their government and western governments the corrosive nature of aid is around this question of democracy on the african continent we do want to be able to hold our government accountable we can do that if actually oxfam is going to solve the
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health care problem somebody else is going to solve education how are we able to hold our government accountable from a public policy stand if they are not the ones who are delivering these outcomes we do need to move away and i was very clear that i didn't say we need to go to 0 i think there are some initiatives and there are some good things that i am i am i myself am involved in some aid initiatives that i think a very good a very targeted but even the aid programs to europe after the war after world war 2 in the form of marshall plan were short sharp and targeted they were not open ended concessions that have been very corrosive to africa not just because of corruption because of inflation the debt burden that they've left on the continent and i will just say one last thing you get a whole list of positive things that have happened in the content of the last decade you're absolutely right they've been 16 significant wins to the notion that those are because of aid i think is wrong i mean can we as i say we've had china come in has been significant investment from china were able to trade with the chinese for better or for worse and i think that that is just one. example many other governments are now going to the capital markets to raise capital so i think it is producing some help but it's absolutely not the case that it is because of
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the regime which has been around for 60 years going to the general about and then the lady who has been waiting you talk about the very long term view economic policy needs to take in the country in the short termism that democracy brings but we'll look at the example of rwanda what he's doing he's basically limiting civil rights for the benefit of growth now in an african context do you feel that critical mass can be amassed within the middle middle class to allow for distributive power within the economy so that. rights and progress of the morsi can take root without having it hijacked by dictatorships and things like that to get where you're coming from you so many say it's a good thing what is doing on the growth front regardless of the political vice versa i believe the what program is doing is interesting. you should be saying this is. what you think about rwanda and the government what's happened well
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i'm not rwanda i don't live in rwanda so it would be kind of arrogant of me to sit here and start pointing fingers at that economy what i will say is that that country came from a genocide that the world turned their backs we flew people out within 90 days 10 percent of the population was massacred and we didn't we did we did nothing the international community did nothing and so you know i am sympathetic to the fact that there they had a very big difficult challenge everything was raised to the ground i think that they are showing improvements in many of the metrics that economists care about things they doing business participation there are 61 percent of women in parliament more than anywhere else in the world there are things that i can pick out and say that that is something for us to look at emulated in the black caucus and you come to. one of the things you do suggest quite often is actually to make man a tree and. and in brazil it is mandatory and in fact more than 20 percent of the population does not go and vote and resents the fact that there is this policy and
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you could not argue that brazil certainly in the last few years has been a disengaged society in any shape or form don't you think that not voting is not only a reflection of how society feels about their elites and their representatives but also ultimately part and parcel of the right to vote is the right not to vote. well i actually believe in the civic right people died for the right to vote and so i really i would talk about mental bridges i think it's something we should explore i think it really is interesting. you know as you know there are 27 countries around the world that have mandatory voting from australia belgium greece a many countries in south america do i think that that people the only reason people don't vote is because they're trying to send a message to the political class and they need no i think there are a lot of economic arguments a lot of people in the united states as you know the presidential election every 4 years is on a tuesday and there are a lot of people who are minimum wage would like to vote who are not able to go to
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vote because it takes too long and there's a process where you were able to i want to go to a woman of the book. i was wondering about the importance of voters being informed and well as misinformed what do you think is the balance of responsibilities between voters informing themselves and educating themselves and the government preventing misinformation and campaign finance reform that will get more accurate information out to the voters what is the balance of responsibilities or are they equal i think that's a great question particular in a world where we have fake news we have social media is a different conduit and so one of the things that i've been looking at and written about is whether or not we we need some kind of glass steagall regulation to sort of this is really refers to the banking sector where we separate retail consumer banking from investment banking do we need that kind of regulation in the media so in other words some clear delineation between fact versus fiction and i think that's something that's on the agenda right now and i would be very supportive of that i'm traditionally b.b.c. walter cronkite's of the united states i didn't matter what race or gender or where part of the political spectrum you were on everybody got the with this one fount of
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knowledge basically one front of knowledge that is the very different now we're all sort of quite siloed we get our information for where we are places where we want to sort of reinforce our views and so i do think if government and public policy actually wants to survive we do want to have much more diversity of thought and. find it challenging on one hand it talks about kind of aid and that being a bad coach or being making it difficult to create change and then on the other hand talk about trade and then you have kind of the market you know supporting people and helping to develop economies i just wonder are we talking one kind of challenging institution for another so i did it i offered 5 proposals for alternatives for aid and i again just to be absolutely clear you know when did they do i say we want to go to 08 even in developed countries there are areas of society that are based on charitable outcomes welfare of the couple welfare systems of the government etc so we don't have to go to 08 but we do need to think about things
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like foreign direct investment issues around tapping the capital markets this is just the suite of things that other countries that are very successful at the developed and developing use and so trade you're right it's under a lot of challenge and threat right now with the rise of protectionism emanating from the kneading economies but i do think that we it's not just about one solution is about a whole host of portfolio of initiatives and i offered them in the book as well you're saying you didn't go to 0 yes well just because you knew for a mystery there was a lot of controversy around that bullet came out the book you said what if one by one african countries each received a phone call telling them exactly 5 years tops would be shut off permanently yes but i didn't say that that's what they should do i said what if what if it is a question it is not a statement. i'm a final question robert kennedy famously said in $160.00 g.d.p. this measuring of economic growth quote does not include the beauty of our poetry of the strength of our marriages it measures neither our wisdom or a learning other our compassion nor our devotion to our country it measures
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everything in short except that which makes life worthwhile to do with well yes and to some degree because simon couldn't it's when he came up with the g.d.p. statistics and he had a brilliant thing he said the truth of the matter is that there are 4 categories of countries there under developed developed japan and argentina. nobody knows why japan grows and why argentina doesn't and i think that really is emblematic of the field of economics we're learning we're evolving we're innovating and a lot of what has been said here are is food for thought is things that people are trying to reinjure improve on and i would not suggest that we should throw out all the knowledge and all the impact that was mentioned earlier all the benefits in the significant improvements that the world has seen i mean today 71 years old is the global average for life expectancy but these are significant benefits that have occurred over the last half century and i think we do need to actually recognize that they have been benefits from the system and we do need to tweak and focus on
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improving the ones where they've been weaknesses to be the more we'll have to leave it there thanks to our audience here in york city union thanks to our panel of amazing experts and thanks to dumby similar for joining us and had thank you very much 1000 thank. you. hello there very cloudy and cool picture across the southeast of all stray the shot me while they're on the way to the south on and heading north woods as the day progresses a cool one across churches 9 degrees celsius and. maybe want to show these coastal
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areas and also the cloud very widespread throughout much of queensland likely across into cannes but a warm day saturday in puff 25 degrees a little bit cooler on sunday the cloud back in the full cost and showers along this coastal areas and also the showers back in the $4.00 calls to sydney and along this coastal area of new south wales meanwhile it's a bit of a dam tank in wellington hi there of 12 degrees a piece me one and asia plenty of cloud and some very heavy rain across southern and central areas of china but it's the war when humid in hanoi temperatures on the rise people sheltering from the sun with the umbrella very cleverly attached meanwhile there's plenty of rain upon him as will be needed for this to take you through the small southern as the china season rains i think taiwan mostly saying it to the east of japan we could see one to scottish areas of honshu similar story really on sunday but these rains very extensive further to the south of china and heavy amounts of rain across into taiwan as well
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a wet day in hong kong and these rains as a very heavy but seasonal and typical this time of year but they could lead to some flooding. on counting the cost a special report from iran $1000.00 has done what you were saying. because this marketplace to your standstill plus. despite the highest death toll in the middle east the government has shifted focus from saving lives to save the economy counting the cost on al-jazeera. a journey of personal discovery my great grandfather he was a slave of the leave property al-jazeera is james gannon explores his family's legacy of slave ownership young like my family's status and wealth has benefited from their choice to enslave people and america's debt to the black people today some of us so scar we even scared to speak out because a surprise that. al-jazeera correspondent
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a moral debt. play an important role. ringback in. this is al jazeera. you're watching the news hour live from london i'm daddy not a gator coming up in the next 60 minutes the u.s. unemployment rate falls unexpectedly adding 2 and a half 1000000 jobs in may as states ease their coronavirus lockdowns hopefully george is looking down right now and saying there's a great thing that's happening for a country. president trump has condemned for invoking george floyd's name as he celebrated the new job.
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