From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
Power is the capacity to get others to do or stop doing something now, or in the future. Power is also a source of order, and a source of comfort for some people. Remember that the extreme situation where nobody has power, is anarchy… and anarchy leads to inferior social outcomes [versus] societies where structures and entities that impose power, limits and rules to create stability and prosperity.
Freedom of expression isn't just about protecting popular speech - it's about creating the conditions where unpopular ideas can challenge power and where dissent can flourish without fear.
Politically and practically, the Euro Zone nations cannot be seen to bail-out Greece. Not only would this set a potentially dangerous precedent, but it could also affect the overall financial stability of the system itself.
While the crisis made the problems of the euro-structure clear, they were present long before. Indeed, the euro helped create the crisis: for the markets seemed to have vastly overestimated the extent to which the single market/single currency had reduced risk (another example of market irrationality), leading to excessive lending to the afflicted countries.
We need to shift our thinking about what government does, and what civil servants do, away from this relentless focus on policy and ideology and onto project management and problem solving.
It's important to note that this isn't just limited to the regimes people often worry about—like Russia, China, Iran, or Venezuela. It's also happening with regimes that are nominal partners of the United States.
Basel III effectively means putting thicker gloves on this boxer, without fixing the fundamental problem (they cannot cope with unexpected punches, from a highly developed adversary- the economy).
We have engineered a world where going into leadership or public office creates huge worry. That's a problem as it means that the people who go forward for these roles are those for whom power is the reward, not doing the work.
Critical narratives are centered on the idea of moral complicity in these evils and use very sophisticated rhetorical ways to get people to feel that guilt and to believe in their complicity. They use very obscure language that involves a lot of double-meaning and multiple-meaning to words so that people it confronts feel stupid.
There's a tension amongst the countries who belong to, and who have led, international organisations. Are they there to solve problems which no country can alone solve? Or – are they there to impose one particular view of the world on the rest of the world?
As a collective, we tend to look at progress as being linear, especially where it concerns women's rights. This is a huge mistake and breeds complacency because we risk losing the hard-won gains.
New media conducive to fostering participation can indeed increase freedoms… just as the printing press, the postal service, the telegraph and the telephone did before.