Debating populism at an elite institution

My speech at the Oxford Union 21 February 2019

I was proposing the motion together with, among others, Brandon Davis, former DNC chief of staff. We lost. Youtube version coming. Check against delivery…

“The neoliberal economic system is broken. What I mean by that is a system that prioritises market forces over the human being, which for four decades has coercively introduced market norms and behaviour into all parts of human life.

When it worked, it worked so well that it convinced millions of people there was no alternative. In 2008 it blew up — and almost destroyed the global finance system.

The response of policymakers was to keep the system on life support; to pump $16 trillion dollars worth of central bank money into the system. Property prices rose, real incomes stagnated.

But while you can keep an economic system on life support, you cannot keep an ideology on life support.

The human brain demands coherence. People want to know: how does my kid have a better life than I had? How do I make my wages rise? How do I stop my local high street looking like the set of a zombie movie?

From the liberal centre came: no answer. Before 2008 the message was: it will be like this forever, only…