David Cameron: The next age of government

128,902 views ・ 2010-02-18

TED


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

00:16
Someone once said that politics is, of course, "showbiz for ugly people."
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So, on that basis, I feel like I've really arrived.
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The other thing to think of is what an honor it is, as a politician,
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to give a TED talk, particularly here in the U.K.,
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where the reputation of politics, with the expenses scandal, has sunk so low.
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There was even a story recently that scientists had thought about
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actually replacing rats in their experiments with politicians.
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And someone asked,"Why?"
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and they said, "Well, there's no shortage of politicians,
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no one really minds what happens to them
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and, after all, there are some things that rats just won't do."
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(Laughter)
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01:00
Now, I know you all love data, so I'm starting with a data-rich slide.
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This, I think, is the most important fact to bear in mind
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in British politics or American politics,
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and that is: We have run out of money.
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We have vast budget deficits.
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This is my global public debt clock,
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and, as you can see, it's 32 trillion and counting.
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01:23
And I think what this leads to
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is a very simple recognition,
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that there's one question in politics at the moment above all other,
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and it's this one: How do we make things better without spending more money?
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Because there isn't going to be a lot of money to improve public services,
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or to improve government, or to improve so many of the things
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that politicians talk about.
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So what follows from that is that if you think it's all about money --
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you can only measure success in public services
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in health care and education and policing by spending more money,
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you can only measure progress by spending money --
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you're going to have a pretty miserable time.
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But if you think a whole lot of other things matter that lead up to well being --
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things like your family relationships, friendship, community, values --
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then, actually, this is an incredibly exciting time to be in politics.
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02:16
And the really simple argument I want to make tonight,
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the really straightforward argument is this:
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That if we combine the right political philosophy, the right political thinking,
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with the incredible information revolution that has taken place,
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and that all of you know so much more about than I do,
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I think there's an incredible opportunity to actually remake politics,
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remake government, remake public services,
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and achieve what's up on that slide, which is a big increase in our well-being.
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02:46
That's the argument I want to make tonight.
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So, starting with the political philosophy.
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Now I'm not saying for a minute that British Conservatives have all the answers.
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Of course we don't.
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But there are two things at heart that I think drive a conservative philosophy
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that are really relevant to this whole debate.
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The first is this: We believe that if you give people
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more power and control over their lives,
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if you give people more choice,
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if you put them in the driving seat,
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then actually, you can create a stronger and better society.
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And if you marry this fact with the incredible abundance
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of information that we have in our world today,
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I think you can completely, as I've said,
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remake politics, remake government, remake your public services.
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The second thing we believe is we believe in going with the grain of human nature.
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03:33
Politics and politicians will only succeed
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if they actually try and treat with people as they are,
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rather than as they would like them to be.
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Now, if you combine this very simple, very conservative thought --
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go with the grain of human nature --
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with all the advances in behavioral economics,
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some of which we were just hearing about,
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again, I think we can achieve a real increase in well-being,
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in happiness, in a stronger society
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without necessarily having to spend a whole lot more money.
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04:04
Now, why do I think now is the moment to make this argument?
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Well, I'm afraid you're going to suffer a short, condensed history lesson
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about what I would say are the three passages of history:
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the pre-bureaucratic age, the bureaucratic age
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and what we now live in, which I think is a post-bureaucratic age.
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A simpler way of thinking of it
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is that we have gone from a world of local control,
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then we went to a world of central control,
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and now we're in a world of people control.
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Local power, central power, now, people power.
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Now, here is King Cnut, king a thousand years ago.
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Thought he could turn back the waves; couldn't turn back the waves.
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Couldn't actually turn back very much,
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because if you were king a thousand years ago,
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while it still took hours and hours and weeks and weeks to traverse your own country,
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there wasn't much you were in charge of.
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You weren't in charge of policing, justice, education, health, welfare.
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You could just about go to war and that was about it.
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This was the pre-bureaucratic age,
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an age in which everything had to be local.
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You had to have local control because there was no nationally-available information
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because travel was so restricted.
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So this was the pre-bureaucratic age.
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Next part of the cold history lesson,
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the lovely picture of the British Industrial Revolution.
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Suddenly, all sorts of transport, travel information were possible,
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and this gave birth to, what I like to call, the bureaucratic age.
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05:29
And hopefully this slide is going to morph beautifully. There we are.
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Suddenly, you have the big, strong, central state.
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It was able -- but only it was able -- to organize
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health care, education, policing, justice.
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And it was a world of, as I say, not local power, but now central power.
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It had sucked all that power up from the localities.
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It was able to do that itself.
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The next great stage, which all of you are so familiar with:
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the massive information revolution.
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06:00
Just consider this one fact:
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One hundred years ago, sending these 10 words cost 50 dollars.
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Right now, here we are linked up to Long Beach and everywhere else,
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and all these secret locations for a fraction of that cost,
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and we can send and receive huge quantities of information
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without it costing anything.
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So we're now living in a post-bureaucratic age,
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where genuine people power is possible.
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06:28
Now, what does this mean for our politics,
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for our public services, for our government?
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06:34
Well I can't, in the time I've got, give huge numbers of examples,
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but let me just give a few of the ways that life can change.
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06:43
And this is so obvious, in a way, because
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you think about how all of you have changed
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the way we shop, the way we travel, the way that business is done.
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That is already happened; the information and Internet revolution
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has actually gone all the way through our societies in so many different ways,
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but it hasn't, in every way, yet touched our government.
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07:01
So, how could this happen?
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Well, I think there are three chief ways that it should make an enormous difference:
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in transparency, in greater choice and in accountability,
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in giving us that genuine people power.
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07:15
If we take transparency, here is one of my favorite websites,
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the Missouri Accountability Portal.
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In the old days, only the government could hold the information,
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and only a few elected people could try and grab that information
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and question it and challenge it.
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Now here, on one website, one state in America,
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every single dollar spent by that government
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is searchable, is analyzable, is checkable.
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Think of the huge change that means:
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Any business that wants to bid for a government contract
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can see what currently is being spent.
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Anyone thinking, "I could do that service better, I could deliver it cheaper,"
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it's all available there.
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We have only, in government and in politics,
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started to scratch the surface of what people are doing in the commercial world
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with the information revolution.
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So, complete transparency will make a huge difference.
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In this country, if we win the election,
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we are going to make all government spending over 25,000 pounds
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transparent and available online, searchable for anyone to see.
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We're going to make every contract -- we're announcing this today --
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available on the Internet so anyone can see
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what the terms are, what the conditions are,
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driving huge value for money,
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but also huge increases, I believe, in well-being as well.
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Choice. Now you all shop online, compare online, do everything online,
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and yet this revolution has hardly touched the surface
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of public services like education, or health care or policing,
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and you're going to see this change massively.
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We should be making this change
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with the information revolution in our country,
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with searchable health sites, so you can see what operations work out properly,
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what records doctors have, the cleanliness of hospitals,
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who does best at infection control --
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all of the information that would once be locked in the Department of Health
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is now available for all of us to see.
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And the third of these big changes: accountability.
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This, I think, is a huge change.
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It is a crime map. This is a crime map from Chicago.
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So, instead of having a situation where only the police have the information
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about which crimes are committed where,
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and we have to employ people in government
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to try and hold the police to account,
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suddenly, we've got this vast opportunity for people power,
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where we, as citizens, can see what crimes are being committed --
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where, when and by whom --
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and we can hold the police to account.
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And you can see this looks a bit like a chef's hat,
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but actually that's an assault, the one in blue.
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You can see what crime is committed where,
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and you have the opportunity to hold your police force to account.
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So those three ways -- transparency, accountability and choice --
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will make a huge difference.
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09:57
Now I also said the other principle
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that I think we should work on is understanding of people,
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is recognizing that going with the grain of human nature
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you can achieve so much more.
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Now, we're got a huge revolution in understanding
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of why people behave in the way that they do,
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and a great opportunity to put that knowledge and information to greater use.
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We're working with some of these people.
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We're being advised by some of these people, as was said,
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to try and bring all the experience to book.
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Let me just give you one example that I think is incredibly simple, and I love.
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We want to get people to be more energy efficient.
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Why? It cuts fuel poverty, it cuts their bills,
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and it cuts carbon emissions at the same time.
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How do you do it?
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Well, we've had government information campaigns over the years
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when they tell you to switch off the lights when you leave the home.
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We even had -- one government minister once told us to
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brush our teeth in the dark.
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I don't think they lasted very long.
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Look at what this does. This is a simple piece of behavioral economics.
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The best way to get someone to cut their electricity bill
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is to show them their own spending,
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to show them what their neighbors are spending,
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and then show what an energy conscious neighbor is spending.
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That sort of behavioral economics
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can transform people's behavior
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in a way that all the bullying and all the information
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and all the badgering from a government cannot possibly achieve.
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Other examples are recycling.
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We all know we need to recycle more.
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How do we make it happen?
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All the proof from America is that actually, if you pay people to recycle,
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if you give them a carrot rather than a stick,
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you can transform their behavior.
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So what does all this add up to?
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Here are my two favorite U.S. speeches of the last 50 years.
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Obviously, here we have JFK with that incredibly simple
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and powerful formulation,
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"Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country,"
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an incredibly noble sentiment.
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But when he made that speech, what could you do
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to build the stronger, better society?
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You could fight for your country, you could die for your country,
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you could serve in your country's civil service,
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but you didn't really have the information and the knowledge
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and the ability to help build the stronger society in the way that you do now.
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And I think an even more wonderful speech,
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which I'm going to read a big chunk of,
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which sums up what I said at the beginning
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about believing there is more to life than money,
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and more that we should try and measure than money.
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And it is Robert Kennedy's beautiful description
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of why gross national product captures so little:
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It "does not allow for the health of our children,
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the quality of their education, or the joy of their play.
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It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages,
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the intelligence of our public debate.
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It measures neither our wit nor our courage,
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neither our wisdom nor our learning,
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neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country.
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It measures everything, in short,
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except that which makes life worthwhile."
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Again, a sentiment that was so noble and beautifully put 40 years ago,
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and a beautiful dream 40 years ago,
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but now with the huge advances in information technology,
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with the massive changes in behavioral economics,
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with all that we know about how you advance well-being,
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that if we combine those insights
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of giving power to people, and using information to make that possible,
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and using the insight of going with the grain of human nature,
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while at the same time, understanding why people behave in the way they do,
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it is a dream more easy to realize today
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than it was when it was made in that beautiful speech 40 years ago.
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Thank you.
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13:44
(Applause)
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