[ Music ]
>> Welcome to the Library
of Congress' National
Book Festival.
My name is Moira Shourie and
I'm the executive producer
of Zocalo Public Square.
The theme of this year's
festival is American ingenuity.
And the authors we are speaking
with today have used ingenious
ways of examining societies
in crisis and the
journey of democracy.
James Robinson is a political
scientist and an economist
and the director of
the Pearson institute
at the University of Chicago.
His new book co-authored
with Daron Acemoglu is
"The Narrow Corridor,
States, Societies,
and The Fate of Liberty."
Jared Diamond is professor
of geography at UCLA,
a Pulitzer Prize winner has
been awarded the National
Science Metal.
His latest book is titled
"Upheaval, Turning Points
for Nations in Crisis."
Today's conversation is
called how liberty flourishes.
Speaking of American ingenuity,
"Upheaval and The Fate
of Liberty" we are at crossroads
of all these factors right now.
I am a new American citizen;
I was sworn in in 2017.
I left one democratic
framework, the largest democracy
in the world, India,
and inserted myself
into the most powerful democracy
in the United States of America.
Jared, your book
examines moments
of upheaval in democracies.
How do you define
a national crisis?
>> I define a national crisis by
analogy with a personal crisis,
the crises that all of us
experience with the breakdown
of relationships, and
deaths of loved ones.
Personal crisis is a
situation where we realize
that the way we've been
functioning no longer works.
And by analogy a national
crisis is a situation,
which a nation realizes
that a basic way
that it's been functioning
no longer works.
An example being Finland had a
certain foreign policy toward
the Soviet Union.
And on November 30,
1939, Finland was invaded
by the Soviet Union,
making clear
that Finland's previous
policy was not working.
That was a crises that exploded.
There were also national crises
that unfold more gradually
such as the breakdown
of Australia's white
Australia's policy.
>> And James, moving to your
book, I'd like to set up,
you know the framework of
our discussion by asking you
to define, what is
the narrow corridor
and how do societies
enter this corridor,
and how are they
washed ashore or exit?
And how do they remain inside?
So, what is the narrow corridor
that you're talking about?
>> Well, the book is
really about sort of trying
to explain law run
dynamics of the political
and economic change in society.
And it hinges around sort
of the balance of power
between the states and society.
So, you know you could think
of sort of three archetypes
of a situation where the
state dominates society.
You know, you could
think of China.
Or you could think of
society dominates the states.
That might be a place
like Yemen.
And in the middle,
there's a balance
between state and society.
And that's where
this corridor is.
So, we emphasize a lot
this balance between states
and society, where you
don't just stay there.
You know, when do we
emphasis this narrow corridor
where there's a balance.
Because that creates a very
specific type of dynamics.
And it's those dynamics
that create liberty.
And that's the main
argument in the book.
How do you get into
the narrow corridor?
Well, that's a very deeply
historical thing, you know.
It can be engineered.
You know, you can think
of the United States
in the late 18th
century of a moment
where the founding
fathers tried to kind
of engineer a particular balance
between state and society.
But even that came in
the context of a history
that was say, distinct
from Latin America.
So, the emphasis in
the book very much
on the law run dynamics.
You know, think about
my Chinese example,
or think of the example
I give of Yemen;
you know we know quite a lot
about Yemen going
back a thousand years.
So, these are very
persistent outcomes.
So, that's the sort of
consoling fact, you know,
I think historical fact
when we're sort of concerned
about falling out of
the corridor today.
You know, how do
you get into it?
You have to create this balance.
And I think there's many
different ways that's happened,
historically.
How do you get out of it?
Well, you get unbalanced.
You know the state takes
over, or society takes over.
>> Right, and there are
maybe places in the world
that we thought were very
safely in the corridor,
but now are at risk
of falling out of it.
And one big reason is of course,
the global pandemic
and COVID-19.
And James, is COVID-19 a stress
test for liberty and democracy.
And how are various governments,
authoritarians and democracies,
how are they responding
to this virus?
>> Well, I think if you think
about the United States,
there was already a
stress test going on.
You know, there's been huge
upsurge of challenges balanced
between states and society.
I think actually Professor
Diamond's book is very
penetrating on this, where he
turns his gaze on the challenges
to US institutions and you
know, using my own terminology,
I say that's precisely you know,
undermining the balance
of states in society.
People are worried
that technology is making
the government too strong,
too powerful.
There's enormous
distrust and cynicism
about political institutions.
You know, we're at an
all-time low in trust
in state institutions
in the United States.
So, there was already, you
know the balance was already
tottering and now we've
been hit by this crisis,
which you know seems to
have exacerbated many
of those conflicts.
It's exacerbated inequality,
it's exacerbated
this equilibrium
between you know what
we need the state to do,
and what people will
trust the state to do.
You know, I think other parts
of the world obviously
are doing much better.
Places where I'd say the society
dominates the state, like Yemen,
you know, they have
very little capacity
to kind of cope with this.
They have very poor
public health systems;
you know they have massive
under provision of public goods.
That's going to be a
humanitarian crisis.
Places like China, you know they
have this despotic power to kind
of lock everybody down
and control everybody.
But you know, that
comes at a price
in many other dimensions
as we know.
But in some sense the
places which are doing best,
places like South Korea,
places like Taiwan,
places like New Zealand
are you know,
places where they're
in the corridor.
There's immense trust
in the institutions,
and there's a healthy balance.
I think the problem
in the United States has been
the forces of globalization,
and inequality, and political
polarization of the sort
that Professor Diamond
talks about in his book,
have sort of made it
very difficult to get
to that solution that say, South
Korea and Taiwan has achieved.
>> And wouldn't you say that
you know this virus seems
to be re-entering our
societies in different ways.
And just when Taiwan, and
South Korea, and Japan seem
to have had it under
control, maybe the less
than ideal examples set by maybe
some people in other countries
who just wanted to travel
and have their summertime
fun is causing a resurgent.
So, there are some bad
habits that are leaking
out into societies that were
very safely in that corridor
in responding to
COVID-19 in a way
that you would expect
governments to function that are
in that corridor,
wouldn't you say, James.
>> Yeah, it's a global problem.
I mean yes, it's
a global problem.
New Zealand can cause the
problem in New Zealand,
but they can't solve the problem
in the rest of the world.
And we were all connected,
and I think you know
that's both a challenge,
but it's also a source
of optimism, you know.
Because so many of the
problems we face are global.
Like climate change
and global warming.
We need global institutions
dealing with that.
So, I would say one of
the really optimistic ways
of thinking about this
is it will just make it
so evident how we need
more global cooperation
in institutions to deal
with the challenges
that the planet faces.
>> And Jared, I'd like
to bring you in here,
because you know we've
been talking a little bit
about the concept of
a natural experiment.
And what do you see as
a natural experiment,
how do you think about it?
And how are institutions
of democracy fairing
when we're all undergoing this
simultaneous natural experiment?
>> I'd like to say two
things about that, Moira.
One is that my background is not
as a geographer, or a historian,
but I was trained as a
physiologist, specifically
as a gallbladder
physiologist, as a specialist
for that small organ
nestled against the liver.
And for 40 years I
taught medical students.
Well, as a gallbladder
physiologist the way
that I learned about how the
world functions was not the way
Jim does now, and I do by
comparing different countries.
But I manipulated gallbladders.
I dipped them in solutions with
potassium, or without potassium.
Those are manipulated
experiments.
And they're very effective ways
of reaching unequivocal
conclusions.
Because you know
what the change was.
But when I switched
over to geography,
I could no longer
manipulate countries.
I could get unequivocal answers
to the state of democracy
in United States, if
I were to draw a line
down the Mississippi River
and then every state east
of the line I commanded would
have a republican government,
every state west of
the line would have a
democratic government.
And then the tier
of states along,
bordering Canada would
have dictatorships.
But we can't do that.
Instead Jim and I have to
deal with what's thrown at us.
But there's a lot of
variation thrown at us.
And an example, following
up on Jim's point
about the different ways that
countries have dealt well
with COVID, as Jim pointed
out, some of the countries
that have dealt well include
countries like New Zealand,
and South Korea democracy.
But a country that has done
extremely well is Vietnam,
which is not a democracy at all.
I believe that Vietnam
has had 0 deaths.
Why has Vietnam dealt well?
Well, there are reasons.
Vietnam got shocked by
the predecessor of COVID,
namely the 2002, SARS
epidemic, which again broke
out in wild animal
markets just as did COVID.
And lots of people
got killed in Vietnam.
So, in Vietnam when they heard
that there was another
disease emerging
from the wild animal
markets in China,
it was an instant
reaction in Vietnam,
with its strong government,
it's not the case,
if you could contract COVID, you
were quarantined in your house.
Instead you are taken
out of your house,
you're put into another
facility.
And your companions in
your house are then put
on lock down, and
there's tracing.
Well, Vietnam has a
strong government,
it's very good at tracing.
The result is that in this
very undemocratic way,
Vietnam has arrived at
an effective solution.
This then, illustrates, COVID
is a vicious natural experiment.
It's a perturbation like
me dipping my gallbladders
in potassium solutions.
Lots of gallbladders
got dipped in potassium,
but in this case lots of
countries got exposed to COVID.
And Brazil has reacted one
way, withing the United States,
Florida has reacted one way,
and Massachusetts another way.
So, we have a massive
natural experiment.
>> And so much of the reaction
and the response also has to do
with the compliance of
citizens and you know,
what has that revealed about how
citizens respond to instruments
of governments, and
maintaining some semblance
of national health?
What has that revealed to you?
Jared?
>> A great natural
experiment again,
and I see the different
ways that it plays
out from the different
countries in which I've lived.
I was living in Germany on the
day that the wall was erected.
Germany is the foreign country
with which perhaps I'm
most closely involved.
Germans are disciplined.
When the government tells
them to do something,
and nowadays they have
a democratic government.
By and large people do it.
In the United States, the
United States has this history
of individualism of not doing
what the government wants us
to do.
And so, here in California,
while my State
of California was the state
whose governor reacted perhaps
first proactively,
to the crisis.
Nevertheless, lots of
Californians do not want
to be told by the
government what to do.
And so there were lots
of Californians who were
out on the beaches now
infecting us further with COVID.
So, the natural experiment
illustrates itself
within the United States.
>> And James, I'd like
to ask you, you know,
we've been talking
about societies
in this narrow corridor.
Do you think COVID
is the crisis?
Or do you think COVID is
revealing deeper problems
that existed before,
problems of inequality
that have been brought to
the forefront by COVID?
And how do you think
societies are reacting?
>> Yeah, I mean I
think it's doing both.
I think it's exacerbating
problems of inequality,
which will always
be very challenging.
You know, somebody like me or
Professor Diamond, you know,
we can sit at home, we can
teach our classes on Zoom,
you know, we're not unemployed.
We can isolate ourselves
from society.
You know this is well-educated
people can do that.
Poor people, they have to
go to work, they can't deal
with their children, you know
because the schools are closed.
You know, they face
unemployment risk.
You know, so it's exacerbated
the nature of inequality.
But I also think that it's
revealed you know it's a type
of sort of crisis that
we haven't really dealt
with before.
And you know some
types of behavior.
So, for example the
type of behavior
that Professor Diamond
was talking about,
that people in the United
States are very kind
of individualistic, they're
against the government,
they're skeptical of
government authority.
You see that all the time.
You know, hear civil
disobedience, people don't want
to cooperate with the
Governor of Illinois proposing
to shut this and shut that.
And so, I think the nature
of, the world changes,
you know the world changes,
society changes, it evolves.
New shocks, new crises,
new challenges come,
and we have to adapt,
humans have to adapt.
And I think the story
of the corridor is not,
you know you get into the
corridor and you stay the same.
As I was saying there's
lots of dynamics.
You know if I thought
about the US society,
or society of western Europe,
it has these characteristics.
But there's a lot of
dynamism in people's beliefs
and institutions, and I think
this shows that you know,
maybe we have to change.
We have to change
the way we act;
we have to change the way
we relate to each other.
We have to be less
individualistic and worry more
about the consequences of our
behavior for other people.
You know, and maybe that will
spill over into other domains.
So, I think both of
those things, both,
it makes these problems worse
but also shows that we have,
there are new problems we
didn't understand before,
we have to adapt to those,
and we have to change
the way we operate.
I think the big picture,
you know I study Latin
America a lot for example.
And you know if I thought
about the evolution
of the United States over
the last 200 years compared
to Latin American countries,
which will became independent
more or less at the same time,
I'd say the way that
things were organized
in the United States has been
quite a success relatively.
But success doesn't last,
you know the world changes
and we have to adapt.
>> Right, you have to keep
tending to that garden.
You know, we've been,
there are all these threats
that face humanity,
including climate change,
the threat of nuclear
war, but this crisis,
the COVID-19 global crisis
has also revealed a new threat
that I don't think many
countries had an eye on
and that is the inequality
of education access.
And even within just the United
States, we are seeing this play
out in such a micro level.
In the news, we hear that you
know parents are organizing
into education pods
and hiring teachers
where school districts
are remaining closed.
But that really is going to lead
to a huge inequality
of education access.
And that's the generation
we're hoping is going
to solve all these problems
that we're handing them.
So, how do you as social
scientists and people who write
about how nations address crises
and how they solve problems?
Jared, do see any silver lining
to the education inequality
as it's revealing itself today
and how COVID might be a way
to fix that in a very
deep systemic way?
>> Yes, I do see a silver
lining and I feel like a referee
at a football match, or a soccer
match, which is fast moving,
and the referee throws down
flags, and then there's a pause
and the referee picks
up the flags.
All right, there have been
several flags thrown down.
One that you just threw down
about inequality and three
or four thrown down by
Jim, which illustrate why
over the last 15 years, Jim has
been the colleague who's had the
greatest influence on me because
he has wonderful insights
and wonderful ways
of saying things.
Some of the things
that Jim pointed out,
this is a global problem.
That's the essence of it.
It's the type of crisis we
haven't dealt with before.
That's the essence of it.
We have to change,
that's the essence of it.
So, what is new?
Yes, this is a global problem.
But as you point out, we've
had other global problems.
We have the problem
of climate change,
of unsustainable resource
use, the global problem
of inequality, the
global problem
of the risk of nuclear war.
But none of these global
problems, interestingly,
have galvanized us the way
that COVID has galvanized us.
Why? The reason is that
COVID kills you quickly
within a few days.
And if you die of COVID, there's
no doubt that you died of COVID.
All right, in the worst-case
scenario 76 million people may
die of COVID.
Far more people risk
dying of climate change
and unsustainable resource use.
But when you die
of climate change,
it's not within two days.
And you don't say my mother
died of climate change,
you say my mother died in a
tsunami, or of starvation,
or of the other consequences
of climate change.
So, climate change
has not galvanized us.
It hasn't caught our attention.
Instead COVID, this relatively
minor problem compared
to climate change has galvanized
us and caught our attention.
And therefore, I
see a silver lining.
I'm cautiously optimistic.
If we succeed in solving COVID,
because COVID is
a global problem.
As you say, COVID has to
be solved by global action.
If New Zealand solves
its own COVID problem,
New Zealand will just get
reinfected by other countries.
The whole world has to
solve its COVID problem.
So, for the first time
we have a global problem
that captures our attention.
Maybe it will get the
world to recognize
that global problems
require global solutions.
That having solved COVID in the
next year or two, then we'll go
on to solve really important
problems of climate change,
inequality, and unsustainable
resource use.
That's why I'm cautiously
optimistic.
>> And what I'm seeing playing
out in my children's generation,
and this is something that UCLA
has brought to the forefront,
Jared, your home institution,
the grand challenge.
And one of the grand
challenges of the university is
to address depression,
which I believe is
at a pandemic level
amongst young people
and teenagers on a global scale.
Because they're overwhelmingly
terrified about climate change.
They feel that there's
no solution,
that we're not giving
them the tools to fix it.
That we've hand strung them.
And so, this is a generation
that we're expecting
to solve our problems.
And James, as you've
illustrated earlier,
you talked about how it does
come down to the individual.
And societies change and evolve.
They don't just enter
this corridor
and sit there counting
their blessings,
they have to keep evolving.
And there's this
young generation
that already is confronting
depression and anxiety.
And now they have to
be in self-isolation
and locked away from
their peers.
How do you think this
generation moves through?
Do you think this
generation is a generation
that will keep most
societies in the corridor,
or what's your take on this?
>> Yeah, I mean I think you
know with respect to the theme
of education; I think
there's you know,
there's been mounting evidence
about you know many
dysfunctional aspects
of the education system
in the United States.
The way you know
the local financing
of public schools works.
The enormous consequences
for people's life chances
and welfare that living you know
in particular neighborhoods,
marginalized, under resourced
neighborhoods causes.
And you know I am optimistic
at least you know talking
about the United States.
I am optimistic that you
can solve that problem.
I think some problems
in the United States
are very hard to solve.
Just because of the
whole kind of ideology,
the way people think
about the world.
The sort of world view
that people have in the US.
But I think that is a
problem that's solvable.
Because it runs counter
to the whole narrative
of being American, this sort
of land of opportunities,
and upward social mobility, and
kind of equality of opportunity.
And we know that this is
fundamentally bind by many
of the inequities
we see in education
and the distribution
of resources.
So, I think you can
develop a narrative
which can change things,
you know if you look
at the stagnation
of social mobility
and median average wages
over the last 30 years,
there's mounting
evidence on this.
And I think that is something
that is politically feasible.
But many things in the United
States are not politically
feasible I think given
the way people think
about their societies.
And you know unfortunately we
have a government that's very
much at the moment, the federal
government that's very much you
know in the mold of a
kind of simplistic idea
of what it is to be American.
Small government, low
taxes, no regulation.
And that's for the worst
possible combination
for such a challenge,
you know when we need
to change, and we need to adapt.
But you know Herbert
Hoover was the president
when the Great Depression
hit in the United States,
and you know it took time
to adapt, and it took time
for Roosevelt to come and
it took time for people
to rethink what the
options were and come
up with politically
feasible alternatives.
So, you know, just thinking
about education that does seem
to be something to me that one
could make a lot of progress on.
>> So, I'd actually like to dig
a little deeper on that point.
You know in "The Narrow
Corridor," you describe India
as a society that's most tied
down by this concept,
the cage of norms.
And I was born and
raised in that cage.
My mother was sterilized after I
was born, the last three girls.
And now I'm raising four
brown sons in America.
And America has its own
unique, different cage of norms.
And I want to know
which society's journey
and which society that you've
examined is the best learning
for where we find ourselves
in America right now?
>> Oh, gosh.
I mean I think you know
different societies have
different histories and they
have different problems.
You know if you went back
200 years, Colombia or Peru,
or you know, they face
similar types of problems
that the United States face.
And they were much
less successful
at solving those problems,
or coming up with a set
of institutions, or
a social contract
that would deal with
those problems.
You know, if I thought about
India, I mean, I'm not a scholar
of India, but what we emphasize
in the book is that what's
so fascinating about India is it
has this enormously deep history
of democracy.
If you go back to
the days of Buddha,
you know there was
participation,
there was accountability.
There was an enormous
history of kind of citizen
and popular participation
in governance,
which is a crucial part of
getting into the corridor.
But why India has found
that so difficult to get
into the corridor is
because it's the more
sociological aspects.
That's what you're talking
about with this cage of norms.
But you know the caste system,
the caste system you know is a
sort of fundamental impediment
of creating an inclusive
society,
or moving into the
norm, in this corridor
where you get this synergy
between the states and society.
So, I think, you know, we talk
about this in many other context
in the book, you know
in sub-Sahara in Africa.
Yeah, in the United States
you have the same thing too.
You have the norm that you know
people who are you know poor,
or people who are unemployed,
you know, they're really
to blame for their predicament.
You know there's this
sort of norm that you know
if you work hard, you'll be
successful and so failure is due
to your own personal
inadequacies.
We know, actually that's
not true, you know,
in terms of economic research,
but it's very much the
ideology in the United States.
>> And so, maybe what
gets us through is
in fact what the theme
of the Book Festival is,
which is American ingenuity.
How do you think COVID-19 and
how do you think our response
to it can make democracy
stronger, in the united states,
but also in parts of the world
where people are really
fighting for democracy?
Do you think COVID-19 has an
opportunity, has opened the door
to strengthen democracy?
>> It has an opportunity
to make things better.
And it has an opportunity
to make things worse.
We see the tendencies
in both directions now.
The essence of COVID is
that it's a global problem,
as I mentioned, for the
first time in human history,
we recognize that
it's a global problem
that demands a global solution.
Every country has to
solve its COVID problem.
Because if COVID
remains in Zaire
and is eliminated
everywhere else,
we the world will
get reinfected.
So, in the worst case
there's already competition.
Face masks got sent to Europe
and there was a scramble
between France, and
Russia, and Israel,
and Sweden to buy
those face masks.
There is concern now
that with the efforts
to develop a vaccine, in
China, and the United States,
and Britain, whichever country
develops the vaccine first,
they hoard the vaccine
for itself.
So, the worst-case scenario
would be increased competition
and a bad future for the world.
The best-case scenario is
that people recognize the
this is a global problem,
requiring a global solution.
COVID is a powerful teacher.
When a few countries have
succeeded in doing with COVID
within their own borders,
they've gotten reinfected.
South Korea, Australia, New
Zealand has gotten reinfected.
And so, COVID is teaching us
that this is a global problem
requiring a global solution.
You asked about whether there's
a country that's a model,
and as Jim pointed out,
every country is different
and some countries are really
different, so you might think
that there's no model.
But there are some
human universals.
One human universal is the
Boy Scout motto 'be prepared.'
This is a motto that's
vivid for me because working
in New Guinea, in the
jungles of New Guinea
for the last 50 years, I've
had to learn to be prepared
for anything going wrong.
Anything might go wrong, and
I've got to be prepared for it.
And I've carried that
attitude towards my life
in the United States, I
drive my friends crazy.
But there's a country that
has learned that lesson,
that's the country of Finland.
Finland because of its
experience with World War II,
when its pass to the
outside got cutoff,
the Fins realized we have
to be prepared for anything.
And so, I have a
friend in Finland who's
on the Finnish government
commission
that meets every month,
thinks of everything
that could go wrong
and prepares for it.
One month, the month that I
last saw my Finnish friend,
they were thinking
what would happen
if Finland's electrical
net got knocked out.
Another month, they
think of what happens
if the financial
net got knocked out.
So, Finland is prepared
for everything.
Not surprisingly, because
they had stockpiled grain,
and they had stockpiled fuel,
and they stockpiled chemicals,
of course, the stockpiled
face masks.
Finland therefore was
prepared for COVID,
just like Finland is
prepared for everything.
So, in short, my hopes for
the world would be a proactive
attitude in the world,
in general, that we have
to be prepared for
things going wrong.
And then my best hope is
that the world will realize
that we have to join together
in solving world problems.
Because if we don't join
together, we're all doomed.
>> Thank you, Jared, that
was actually very insightful
to hear about Finland.
And you know, the topic of
today's discussion as I started
out is actually entitled
how liberty flourishes.
And James, I'd like
to end with you.
Can liberty flourish again?
Here we are all you know
feeling like we're prisoners
in our own vortexes, and
that if we meet a friend,
or you know take
our dog for a walk,
we're going to be
infecting people.
And that really has been
crushing our personal sense
of liberty.
So can liberty flourish again,
and what do you think are some
of the positives that
can come out of this?
>> Yeah, I think it can.
I mean I think when the crisis,
when the pandemic started,
when it became evident
how serious this was,
I think there was a
sort of rapid embrace
of very draconian type models.
You know, with the Chinese.
Oh, China can just
lock everything down,
and that's exactly what the
epidemiologists think is a
good idea.
And you know we can't do that.
It's too chaotic.
And so then there's a sort of
demand, kind of this state,
this controlling state.
And that seemed like a terrible
threat to democracy to me.
But I think as the
situation has evolved,
we've actually seen
some of these examples
that we've been talking about.
You know, South Korea has
managed to be just as effective
with far fewer economic
consequences by the way.
You know, South Korea
hasn't had the kind of lock
down that they imposed in China.
And it hasn't had nearly such
bad economic consequences.
Of course there's been
economic consequences,
you know its exports
have gone down
and its markets contract,
and but so I think--
>> Global contraction as
well, I mean you know.
>> Of course, of course, yes
you can't isolate yourself
from that.
Just as Professor
Diamond was saying
that we can't isolate
ourselves from this.
So, I think it's not the Chinese
model doesn't look so great,
the very draconian model
doesn't look so great.
So, I'm less worried
about that now.
I'm just very concerned about;
you know so I think yes
liberty can flourish.
Liberty can flourish.
And we have to use this
as an opportunity to see,
you know to reflect on the
problems of our society.
You know we haven't talked
about the enormous problems
of public health care
you know in this country.
The fact that millions of people
don't have health insurance.
You know this is
an enormous crisis.
And you know if somebody
is sick,
I can't isolate myself
from that.
And so that's also, maybe
it will help us reflect
on the absence of basic public
goods you know that we all need
in this society,
insurance for poor people.
And so that's something else
that I think could
come out of this.
Because what liberty can you
have if you don't have health
or access to healthcare.
But some basic public
goods that we need.
And I think this also can
help us focus on those.
>> Right, and so I'd like to
actually bring out discussion
to a close on that hopeful note.
That we do have countries
and forms of government
that are responding well to
the needs of its citizens.
And we've revealed that
inequalities in the world,
places that face inequality
are facing much greater impact,
the negative impact of COVID-19,
but these are actually revealing
great opportunities for us
to strengthen our sense of
democracy and liberty both
on a national as well
as on a personal level.
I'd like to thank James Robinson
and Jared Diamond
for joining us today.
This has been a really
enlightening conversation.
And I've read both
of your books.
They're fascinating.
And to read them
back-to-back actually is,
you know that's the
great sequence.
And I actually read Jared's
first and followed it
up with James' and I could do
it again the other way around
and learn new and
different things.
So, thank you for dedicating
so much of your time
for this discussion today.
And thank you for joining us
at the National Book Festival.
>> Thank you, all of you
for joining us virtually.
I would like to have
been with you in person,
but this is the next best,
thank you for joining us today.
>> thank you very much for
joining us and I look forward
to attending the
National Book Festival
in person in the future.
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