Democracy. In the West, we make a colossal mistake taking it for granted. We see democracy not as the most fragile of flowers that it really is, but we see it as part of our society's furniture. We tend to think of it as an intransigent given. We mistakenly believe that capitalism begets inevitably democracy. It doesn't.
Demokracija. Mi na Zapadu činimo ogromnu grešku uzimajući je kao gotovu činjenicu. Demokraciju vidimo ne kao najkrhkiji cvijet, što ona ustvari jeste, već je vidimo kao dio pokućstva našeg društva. Skloni smo o njoj misliti kao o beskompromisnoj datosti. Pogrešno vjerujemo da kapitalizam neizbježno rađa demokraciju. To nije tako.
Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew and his great imitators in Beijing have demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that it is perfectly possible to have a flourishing capitalism, spectacular growth, while politics remains democracy-free. Indeed, democracy is receding in our neck of the woods, here in Europe.
Singapurski Lee Kuan Yew i njegovi veliki imitatori u Pekingu pokazali su, van svake sumnje, da je savršeno moguće imati napredni kapitalizam, spektakularni rast, dok politika ostaje bez demokracije. Uistinu, demokracija uzmiče na našem terenu, ovdje u Europi.
Earlier this year, while I was representing Greece -- the newly elected Greek government -- in the Eurogroup as its Finance Minister, I was told in no uncertain terms that our nation's democratic process -- our elections -- could not be allowed to interfere with economic policies that were being implemented in Greece. At that moment, I felt that there could be no greater vindication of Lee Kuan Yew, or the Chinese Communist Party, indeed of some recalcitrant friends of mine who kept telling me that democracy would be banned if it ever threatened to change anything.
Početkom ove godine, dok sam predstavljao Grčku -- novoizabranu grčku vladu -- u Eurogrupi, kao ministar financija, izravno mi je rečeno da demokratski proces naše zemlje -- naši izbori -- ne smiju ometati ekonomske mjere koje su se uvodile u Grčkoj. U tom času sam pomislio da ne može biti boljeg opravdanja za Lee Kuan Yewa, ili kinesku Komunističku partiju, zapravo i nekih mojih svojeglavih prijatelja koji su mi stalno govorili da će demokracija biti zabranjena ako ikada zaprijeti bilo kakvom promjenom.
Tonight, here, I want to present to you an economic case for an authentic democracy. I want to ask you to join me in believing again that Lee Kuan Yew, the Chinese Communist Party and indeed the Eurogroup are wrong in believing that we can dispense with democracy -- that we need an authentic, boisterous democracy. And without democracy, our societies will be nastier, our future bleak and our great, new technologies wasted.
Večeras vam ovdje želim predstaviti ekonomski primjer jedne autentične demokracije. Želim od vas zatražiti da mi se pridružite u vjerovanju da Lee Kuan Yew, kineska Komunistička partija i zapravo Eurogrupa griješe vjerujući da možemo bez demokracije -- da nam je potrebna autentična, glasna demokracija. A bez demokracije, naša će društva biti opasnija, naša budućnost mračna i naše velike, nove tehnologije potraćene.
Speaking of waste, allow me to point out an interesting paradox that is threatening our economies as we speak. I call it the twin peaks paradox. One peak you understand -- you know it, you recognize it -- is the mountain of debts that has been casting a long shadow over the United States, Europe, the whole world. We all recognize the mountain of debts. But few people discern its twin. A mountain of idle cash belonging to rich savers and to corporations, too terrified to invest it into the productive activities that can generate the incomes from which you can extinguish the mountain of debts and which can produce all those things that humanity desperately needs, like green energy.
Govoreći o rasipanju, dozvolite mi da istaknem jedan zanimljiv paradoks koji prijeti našim ekonomijama u ovom času dok pričamo. Ja to nazivam paradoks vrhova blizanaca. Jedan vrh razumijete -- znate ga, prepoznajete ga -- je brdo dugova koje baca dugačku sjenu preko Sjedinjenih država, Europe, cijelog svijeta. Svi mi prepoznajemo brdo dugova. Ali tek nekolicina razaznaju njegovog blizanca. Brdo neaktivne gotovine koja pripada bogatim štedišama i korporacijama, previše uplašenima da bi je investirali u produktivne djelatnosti koje mogu stvoriti dohotke od kojih možete iskorijeniti brdo dugova i koji mogu proizvesti sve one stvari koje čovječanstvo očajnički treba, kao što je zelena energija.
Now let me give you two numbers. Over the last three months, in the United States, in Britain and in the Eurozone, we have invested, collectively, 3.4 trillion dollars on all the wealth-producing goods -- things like industrial plants, machinery, office blocks, schools, roads, railways, machinery, and so on and so forth. $3.4 trillion sounds like a lot of money until you compare it to the $5.1 trillion that has been slushing around in the same countries, in our financial institutions, doing absolutely nothing during the same period except inflating stock exchanges and bidding up house prices.
Dozvolite da vam dam dva broja. Tijekom zadnja tri mjeseca u Sjedinjenim državama, u Britaniji i Eurozoni, investirali smo, kolektivno, 3,4 trilijuna dolara u sve robe koje proizvode bogatstvo -- stvari poput industrijskih postrojenja, strojeva, poslovnih zgrada, škola, cesta, pruga, strojeva i tako dalje i tako dalje. 3,4 trilijuna dolara zvuči kao mnogo novca dok to ne usporedite s 5,1 trilijun dolara koji su bili razbacani naokolo u tim istim zemljama, u našim financijskim ustanovama, ne čineći apsolutno ništa u tom istom razdoblju osim napuhavanja burzi i podizanja cijena stanova.
So a mountain of debt and a mountain of idle cash form twin peaks, failing to cancel each other out through the normal operation of the markets.
Tako brdo dugova i brdo neaktivne gotovine tvore vrhove blizance, koji se ne uspijevaju međusobno poništiti kroz normalno funkcioniranje tržišta.
The result is stagnant wages, more than a quarter of 25- to 54-year-olds in America, in Japan and in Europe out of work. And consequently, low aggregate demand, which in a never-ending cycle, reinforces the pessimism of the investors, who, fearing low demand, reproduce it by not investing -- exactly like Oedipus' father, who, terrified by the prophecy of the oracle that his son would grow up to kill him, unwittingly engineered the conditions that ensured that Oedipus, his son, would kill him.
Rezultat je stagnacija plaća, više od četvrtine ljudi u dobi od 25 do 45 u Americi, Japanu i Europi su bez posla. I stoga, niska agregatna potražnja, koja u beskonačnom ciklusu, učvršćuje pesimizam investitora koji je, bojeći se slabe potražnje, reproduciraju ne investirajući -- upravo kao Edipov otac koji je, užasnut proročanstvom da će mu sin odrasti i ubiti ga, nesvjesno isplanirao okolnosti koje su osigurale da ga Edip, njegov sin, ubije.
This is my quarrel with capitalism. Its gross wastefulness, all this idle cash, should be energized to improve lives, to develop human talents, and indeed to finance all these technologies, green technologies, which are absolutely essential for saving planet Earth.
To je moja svađa s kapitalizmom. Njegova glupa rasipnost, sva ta neaktivna gotovina, trebala bi biti aktivirana za poboljšanje života, za razvoj ljudskih talenata, i ustvari za financiranje svih tih tehnologija, zelenih tehnologija, koje su apsolutno ključne za spašavanje planete Zemlje.
Am I right in believing that democracy might be the answer? I believe so, but before we move on, what do we mean by democracy? Aristotle defined democracy as the constitution in which the free and the poor, being in the majority, control government.
Jesam li u pravu vjerujući da bi demokracija mogla biti odgovor? Vjerujem da jesam, no prije nego što nastavimo, što mislimo pod demokracijom? Aristotel je demokraciju definirao kao uređenje u kojem slobodni i siromašni, budući da su u većini, kontroliraju vladu.
Now, of course Athenian democracy excluded too many. Women, migrants and, of course, the slaves. But it would be a mistake to dismiss the significance of ancient Athenian democracy on the basis of whom it excluded.
Naravno da je atenska demokracija isključivala previše njih. Žene, migrante i, naravno, robove. No bilo bi pogrešno zanemariti značaj drevne atenske demokracije na osnovu toga koga je sve isključivala.
What was more pertinent, and continues to be so about ancient Athenian democracy, was the inclusion of the working poor, who not only acquired the right to free speech, but more importantly, crucially, they acquired the rights to political judgments that were afforded equal weight in the decision-making concerning matters of state. Now, of course, Athenian democracy didn't last long. Like a candle that burns brightly, it burned out quickly. And indeed, our liberal democracies today do not have their roots in ancient Athens. They have their roots in the Magna Carta, in the 1688 Glorious Revolution, indeed in the American constitution. Whereas Athenian democracy was focusing on the masterless citizen and empowering the working poor, our liberal democracies are founded on the Magna Carta tradition, which was, after all, a charter for masters. And indeed, liberal democracy only surfaced when it was possible to separate fully the political sphere from the economic sphere, so as to confine the democratic process fully in the political sphere, leaving the economic sphere -- the corporate world, if you want -- as a democracy-free zone.
Ono što je bilo značajnije, a i dalje je tako, za atensku demokraciju, bilo je uključivanje siromašnih radnika koji, ne samo da su stekli slobodu govora, već, što je još važnije, presudno, stekli su pravo na politička mišljenja koja su imala jednaku težinu u donošenju odluka o državnim pitanjima. Naravno, atenska demokracija nije dugo trajala. Kao svijeća koja jako gori, brzo je izgorjela. I, zapravo, naše današnje liberalne demokracije nemaju svoj korijen u drevnoj Ateni. One imaju svoj korijen u Velikoj povelji slobode, Magna carta, u Slavnoj revoluciji 1688., ustvari u Američkom ustavu. Dok se atenska demokracija fokusirala na građanina bez gospodara osnažujući siromašne radnike, naše liberalne demokracije su utemeljene na tradiciji Velike povelje slobode, koja je, naposljetku, povelja za gospodare. I uistinu, liberalna demokracija se pojavila tek kada je bilo moguće u potpunosti odvojiti političku sferu od ekonomske sfere, kako bi se demokratski proces u potpunosti ograničio na političku sferu, ostavljajući sferu ekonomije -- svijet korporacija, ako želite -- kao zonu bez demokracije.
Now, in our democracies today, this separation of the economic from the political sphere, the moment it started happening, it gave rise to an inexorable, epic struggle between the two, with the economic sphere colonizing the political sphere, eating into its power.
U našim današnjim demokracijama ovo odvajanje ekonomske od političke sfere, u trenutku kada se počelo događati, uzrokovalo je neizbježnu, epsku borbu između tih dviju sfera, gdje je ekonomska sfera kolonizirala političku sferu, nagrizajući njenu moć.
Have you wondered why politicians are not what they used to be? It's not because their DNA has degenerated.
Jeste li se upitali zašto političari više nisu što su nekad bili? To nije stoga što im je DNA degenerirala.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
It is rather because one can be in government today and not in power, because power has migrated from the political to the economic sphere, which is separate.
To je zato što se danas može biti u vladi i ne imati moć, zato jer je moć migrirala iz političke u ekonomsku sferu, koja je odvojena.
Indeed, I spoke about my quarrel with capitalism. If you think about it, it is a little bit like a population of predators, that are so successful in decimating the prey that they must feed on, that in the end they starve.
Uistinu, govorio sam o svojoj svađi s kapitalizmom. Ako razmislite o tome, to je pomalo kao populacija predatora, koja je tako uspješna u desetkovanju plijena kojim se mora hraniti, da na koncu umire od gladi.
Similarly, the economic sphere has been colonizing and cannibalizing the political sphere to such an extent that it is undermining itself, causing economic crisis. Corporate power is increasing, political goods are devaluing, inequality is rising, aggregate demand is falling and CEOs of corporations are too scared to invest the cash of their corporations.
Slično tome, ekonomska sfera je kolonizirala i proždirala političku sferu do te mjere da je samu sebe potkopala, uzrokujući ekonomske krize. Korporativna moć raste, politička dobra se obezvrijeđuju nejednakost raste, agregatna potražnja opada, a direktori su suviše preplašeni da bi investirali gotovinu svojih korporacija.
So the more capitalism succeeds in taking the demos out of democracy, the taller the twin peaks and the greater the waste of human resources and humanity's wealth.
Što je kapitalizam uspješniji u uklanjanju demosa iz demokracije, to su viši vrhovi blizanci i veće je rasipanje ljudskih resursa i bogatstva čovječanstva.
Clearly, if this is right, we must reunite the political and economic spheres and better do it with a demos being in control, like in ancient Athens except without the slaves or the exclusion of women and migrants.
Jasno, ako je ovo točno, mi moramo ponovo ujediniti političku i ekonomsku sferu i bolje da to učinimo pod kontrolom demosa, kao u drevnoj Ateni, no bez robova ili isključivanja žena i migranata.
Now, this is not an original idea. The Marxist left had that idea 100 years ago and it didn't go very well, did it?
Ovo nije originalna ideja. Marksistička ljevica imala je tu ideju prije 100 godina i to nije baš dobro prošlo, zar ne?
The lesson that we learned from the Soviet debacle is that only by a miracle will the working poor be reempowered, as they were in ancient Athens, without creating new forms of brutality and waste.
Lekcija koju smo naučili iz sovjetskog sloma je da će siromašni radnici jedino čudom biti ponovo emancipirani, kao što su bili u drevnoj Ateni, bez stvaranja novih oblika brutalnosti i rasipanja.
But there is a solution: eliminate the working poor. Capitalism's doing it by replacing low-wage workers with automata, androids, robots. The problem is that as long as the economic and the political spheres are separate, automation makes the twin peaks taller, the waste loftier and the social conflicts deeper, including -- soon, I believe -- in places like China.
No, postoji rješenje: eliminirati siromašne radnike. Kapitalizam to radi zamjenjujući radnike s niskim prihodima automatima, androidima, robotima. Problem je da dokle god su ekonomska i politička sfera odvojene, automatizacija čini vrhove blizance još višima, rasipanje obimnijim i društvene sukobe dubljima, uključujući -- vjerujem uskoro -- i u područjima poput Kine.
So we need to reconfigure, we need to reunite the economic and the political spheres, but we'd better do it by democratizing the reunified sphere, lest we end up with a surveillance-mad hyperautocracy that makes The Matrix, the movie, look like a documentary.
Zato moramo preoblikovati, moramo ponovo ujediniti ekonomsku i političku sferu, ali bilo bi bolje da to učinimo demokratizacijom objedinjene sfere, kako ne bi na kraju imali hiper-autokraciju opsjednutu nadzorom u usporedbi s kojom film Matrix izgleda kao dokumentarac.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
So the question is not whether capitalism will survive the technological innovations it is spawning. The more interesting question is whether capitalism will be succeeded by something resembling a Matrix dystopia or something much closer to a Star Trek-like society, where machines serve the humans and the humans expend their energies exploring the universe and indulging in long debates about the meaning of life in some ancient, Athenian-like, high tech agora.
Dakle, pitanje nije hoće li kapitalizam preživjeti tehnološke inovacije čiji je začetnik. Zanimljivije pitanje je hoće li nakon kapitalizma slijediti nešto nalik na distopiju a la Matrix ili nešto puno bliže društvu a la Star Trek gdje mašine služe ljudima a ljudi svoju energiju ulažu u istraživanje svemira, prepuštajući se dugim raspravama o značenju života u nekoj high-tech agori poput atenskih.
I think we can afford to be optimistic. But what would it take, what would it look like to have this Star Trek-like utopia, instead of the Matrix-like dystopia?
Ja mislim da si možemo dozvoliti da budemo optimistični. No, što bi bilo potrebno, kako bi to izgledalo da imamo utopiju a la Star Trek umjesto distopiju a la Matrix?
In practical terms, allow me to share just briefly, a couple of examples.
U praksi, dozvolite mi da ukratko izložim par primjera.
At the level of the enterprise, imagine a capital market, where you earn capital as you work, and where your capital follows you from one job to another, from one company to another, and the company -- whichever one you happen to work at at that time -- is solely owned by those who happen to work in it at that moment. Then all income stems from capital, from profits, and the very concept of wage labor becomes obsolete. No more separation between those who own but do not work in the company and those who work but do not own the company; no more tug-of-war between capital and labor; no great gap between investment and saving; indeed, no towering twin peaks.
Na razini tvrtke, zamislite tržište kapitala, gdje radeći, istovremeno stječete kapital i gdje vas vaš kapital slijedi od jednog posla do drugog, od jedne tvrtke do druge, a tvrtka -- za koju god radili u tom času -- je vlasništvo isključivo onih koji u njoj u tom času rade. Tada sav prihod proizlazi iz kapitala, iz profita, a sam koncept najamnog rada zastarjeva. Nema više razdvajanja između onih koji posjeduju, ali ne rade u tvrtki i onih koji rade, ali nisu vlasnici tvrtke; nema više potezanja konopa između kapitala i rada; nema velikog jaza između investiranja i štednje; zapravo, nema visokih vrhova blizanaca.
At the level of the global political economy, imagine for a moment that our national currencies have a free-floating exchange rate, with a universal, global, digital currency, one that is issued by the International Monetary Fund, the G-20, on behalf of all humanity. And imagine further that all international trade is denominated in this currency -- let's call it "the cosmos," in units of cosmos -- with every government agreeing to be paying into a common fund a sum of cosmos units proportional to the country's trade deficit, or indeed to a country's trade surplus. And imagine that that fund is utilized to invest in green technologies, especially in parts of the world where investment funding is scarce.
Na razini globalne političke ekonomije zamislite na trenutak da naše nacionalne valute imaju fluktuirajući tečaj, s univerzalnom, globalnom, digitalnom valutom koju bi izdavao Međunarodni monetarni fond, G-20, u ime cijelog čovječanstva. I zamislite nadalje da se sva međunarodna trgovina denominira u tu valutu -- hajdemo je nazvati "kozmos", u jedinice kozmosa -- i da svaka vlada pristane uplaćivati u zajednički fond iznos jedinica kozmosa proporcionalan trgovinskom deficitu dotične zemlje, ili trgovinskom suficitu te zemlje. I zamislite da se taj fond koristi za investiranje u zelene tehnologije, posebno u dijelovima svijeta s oskudnim investicijskim financiranjem.
This is not a new idea. It's what, effectively, John Maynard Keynes proposed in 1944 at the Bretton Woods Conference. The problem is that back then, they didn't have the technology to implement it. Now we do, especially in the context of a reunified political-economic sphere.
Ovo nije nova ideja. To je, praktički, predlagao John Maynard Keynes 1944. na konferenciji u Breton Woodsu. Problem je u tome što u to vrijeme nisu imali tehnologiju da bi to implementirali. Sada je imamo, posebno u kontekstu objedinjene političko-ekonomske sfere.
The world that I am describing to you is simultaneously libertarian, in that it prioritizes empowered individuals, Marxist, since it will have confined to the dustbin of history the division between capital and labor, and Keynesian, global Keynesian. But above all else, it is a world in which we will be able to imagine an authentic democracy.
Svijet koji vam opisujem istovremeno je libertarijanski, po tome što daje prednost emancipiranim pojedincima, marksistički, budući da će zatvoriti u ropotarnicu povijesti podjelu između kapitala i rada, i kejnzianski, globalno kejnzianski. No, prije svega, to je svijet u kojem ćemo moći zamisliti autentičnu demokraciju.
Will such a world dawn? Or shall we descend into a Matrix-like dystopia? The answer lies in the political choice that we shall be making collectively. It is our choice, and we'd better make it democratically.
Hoće li takav svijet osvanuti? Ili ćemo se spustiti u distopiju a la Matrix? Odgovor leži u političkom izboru koji ćemo kolektivno činiti. To je naš izbor, i bolje bi nam bilo da ga načinimo demokratski.
Thank you.
Hvala.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)
Bruno Giussani: Yanis ... It was you who described yourself in your bios as a libertarian Marxist. What is the relevance of Marx's analysis today?
Bruno Giussani: Yanis ... U svojoj biografiji sami ste se opisali kao libertarijanski marksist. Koja je važnost marksističke analize danas?
Yanis Varoufakis: Well, if there was any relevance in what I just said, then Marx is relevant. Because the whole point of reunifying the political and economic is -- if we don't do it, then technological innovation is going to create such a massive fall in aggregate demand,
Yanis Varoufakis: Pa, ako ima ikakve važnosti u onome što sam upravo rekao onda je Marx važan. Zato jer je cijela poanta objedinjavanja političkog i ekonomskog -- ako to ne učinimo, tehnološke inovacije će stvoriti takav masivni pad agregatne potražnje,
what Larry Summers refers to as secular stagnation. With this crisis migrating from one part of the world, as it is now, it will destabilize not only our democracies, but even the emerging world that is not that keen on liberal democracy. So if this analysis holds water, then Marx is absolutely relevant. But so is Hayek, that's why I'm a libertarian Marxist, and so is Keynes, so that's why I'm totally confused.
kojeg Larry Summers naziva sekularna stagnacija. S ovom krizom koja migrira iz jednog dijela svijeta, kao što je to sada, to će destabilizirati ne samo naše demokracije, nego čak svijet koji nastaje, a koji nije baš sklon liberalnoj demokraciji. Pa, ako ova analiza ima smisla, onda je Marx apsolutno relevantan. Ali isto tako je i Hayek, zbog toga sam ja libertarijanski marksista, a isto tako i Keynes, pa sam zato potpuno zbunjen.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
BG: Indeed, and possibly we are too, now.
BG: Zaista, i vjerojatno nas je sad dvoje.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
(Applause)
(Pljesak)
YV: If you are not confused, you are not thinking, OK?
YV: Ako niste zbunjeni, onda ne mislite, zar ne?
BG: That's a very, very Greek philosopher kind of thing to say --
BG: To ste rekli baš kao grčki filozof --
YV: That was Einstein, actually --
YV: Ustvari, to je bio Einstein --
BG: During your talk you mentioned Singapore and China, and last night at the speaker dinner, you expressed a pretty strong opinion about how the West looks at China. Would you like to share that?
BG: U svom govoru spomenuli ste Singapur i Kinu, a jučer na večeri za govornike, izniijeli ste prilično čvrst stav o tome kako Zapad gleda na Kinu. Biste li ga podijelili s nama?
YV: Well, there's a great degree of hypocrisy. In our liberal democracies, we have a semblance of democracy. It's because we have confined, as I was saying in my talk, democracy to the political sphere, while leaving the one sphere where all the action is -- the economic sphere -- a completely democracy-free zone.
YV: Pa, postoji visok stupanj licemjerja. U našim liberalnim demokracijama mi imamo privid demokracije. To je zato jer smo ograničili, kao što sam već rekao, demokraciju na političku sferu, ostavljajući onu sferu u kojoj se sve zbiva -- ekonomsku sferu -- zonom potpuno lišenom demokracije.
In a sense, if I am allowed to be provocative, China today is closer to Britain in the 19th century. Because remember, we tend to associate liberalism with democracy -- that's a mistake, historically. Liberalism, liberal, it's like John Stuart Mill. John Stuart Mill was particularly skeptical about the democratic process. So what you are seeing now in China is a very similar process to the one that we had in Britain during the Industrial Revolution, especially the transition from the first to the second. And to be castigating China for doing that which the West did in the 19th century, smacks of hypocrisy.
Na neki način, ako smijem biti provokativan, Kina je danas bliža Britaniji u 19. stoljeću. Jer, sjećate se, mi smo skloni liberalizam povezivati sa demokracijom -- to je pogrešno, povijesno. Liberalizam, liberal, to je kao John Stuart Mill. John Stuart Mill je bio posebno skeptičan u vezi demokratskog procesa. Pa ono što danas vidite u Kini je vrlo sličan proces onome što smo imali u Britaniji tijekom Industrijske revolucije, posebno prijelaza iz prve u drugu. I kažnjavanje Kine jer radi ono što je Zapad radio u 19. stoljeću, miriše na licemjerje.
BG: I am sure that many people here are wondering about your experience as the Finance Minister of Greece earlier this year.
BG: Siguran sam da mnoge ljude ovdje zanima vaše iskustvo kao ministra financija Grčke, ranije ove godine.
YV: I knew this was coming.
YV: Znao sam da ovo slijedi.
BG: Yes.
BG: Da.
BG: Six months after, how do you look back at the first half of the year?
BG: Šest mjeseci poslije, kako gledate unazad na prvu polovinu godine?
YV: Extremely exciting, from a personal point of view, and very disappointing, because we had an opportunity to reboot the Eurozone. Not just Greece, the Eurozone. To move away from the complacency and the constant denial that there was a massive -- and there is a massive architectural fault line going through the Eurozone, which is threatening, massively, the whole of the European Union process.
YV: Izuzetno uzbudljivo, s mog osobnog stanovišta, i vrlo razočaravajuće, jer smo imali priliku iznova pokrenuti Eurozonu. Ne samo Grčku, Eurozonu. Odmaknuti se od samodopadnosti i stalnog poricanja da postoji masivni -- a postoji masivni arhitektonski rasjed kroz Eurozonu koji je ozbiljna prijetnja cijelom procesu Europske unije.
We had an opportunity on the basis of the Greek program -- which by the way, was the first program to manifest that denial -- to put it right. And, unfortunately, the powers in the Eurozone, in the Eurogroup, chose to maintain denial.
Mi smo imali priliku da na temelju grčkog programa koji je, usput rečeno, bio prvi program koji je pokazao to poricanje -- to ispravimo. I, nažalost, moćnici u Eurozoni, u Eurogrupi, odabrali su nastaviti poricanje.
But you know what happens. This is the experience of the Soviet Union. When you try to keep alive an economic system that architecturally cannot survive, through political will and through authoritarianism, you may succeed in prolonging it, but when change happens it happens very abruptly and catastrophically.
No, znate što se događa. To je iskustvo Sovjetskog saveza. Kada pokušavate održati na životu ekonomski sustav koji arhitektonski ne može preživjeti, kroz političku volju i kroz autoritarnost, možda ćete uspjeti produžiti ga, no kada se dogode promjene to se događa vrlo naglo i katastrofično.
BG: What kind of change are you foreseeing?
BG: Kakvu vrstu promjene predviđate?
YV: Well, there's no doubt that if we don't change the architecture of the Eurozone, the Eurozone has no future.
YV: Pa, nema sumnje da ako ne promijenimo arhitekturu Eurozone, Eurozona nema budućnosti.
BG: Did you make any mistakes when you were Finance Minister?
BG: Jeste li činili greške dok ste bili ministar financija?
YV: Every day.
YV: Svaki dan.
BG: For example? YV: Anybody who looks back --
BG: Na primjer? YV: Svatko tko pogleda unazad --
(Applause)
(Pljesak)
No, but seriously. If there's any Minister of Finance, or of anything else for that matter, who tells you after six months in a job, especially in such a stressful situation, that they have made no mistake, they're dangerous people. Of course I made mistakes.
Ne, ozbiljno. Ako postoji ijedan ministar financija, ili bilo čega drugog, koji vam kaže, nakon šest mjeseci na poslu, pogotovo u tako stresnoj situaciji, da nije učinio niti jednu grešku, to je opasan čovjek. Naravno da sam činio greške.
The greatest mistake was to sign the application for the extension of a loan agreement in the end of February. I was imagining that there was a genuine interest on the side of the creditors to find common ground. And there wasn't. They were simply interested in crushing our government, just because they did not want to have to deal with the architectural fault lines that were running through the Eurozone. And because they didn't want to admit that for five years they were implementing a catastrophic program in Greece. We lost one-third of our nominal GDP. This is worse than the Great Depression. And no one has come clean from the troika of lenders that have been imposing this policy to say, "This was a colossal mistake."
Najveća greška bila je potpisivanje molbe za produljenje sporazuma o zajmu krajem veljače. Ja sam zamišljao da postoji istinski interes na strani kreditora da se nađe zajedničko rješenje. A nije ga bilo. Njih je zanimalo samo da sruše našu vladu, samo zato jer nisu željeli da se moraju baviti arhitektonskim rasjedima koji se se protezali kroz Europu. I zato jer nisu željeli priznati da su pet godina provodili katastrofalni program u Grčkoj. Mi smo izgubili trećinu našeg nominalnog BDP-a. To je gore od Velike depresije. A nitko nije priznao, od trojke zajmodavaca koja je nametala te mjere, i rekao, "Ovo je bila ogromna greška."
BG: Despite all this, and despite the aggressiveness of the discussion, you seem to be remaining quite pro-European.
BG: Unatoč svemu tomu, i unatoč agresivnosti diskusije, vi izgleda ostajete prilično pro-europski.
YV: Absolutely. Look, my criticism of the European Union and the Eurozone comes from a person who lives and breathes Europe. My greatest fear is that the Eurozone will not survive. Because if it doesn't, the centrifugal forces that will be unleashed will be demonic, and they will destroy the European Union. And that will be catastrophic not just for Europe but for the whole global economy.
YV: Apsolutno. Gledajte, moj kriticizam Europske unije i Eurozone dolazi od osobe koja živi i diše Europu. Moj najveći strah je da Eurozona neće preživjeti. Zato jer ako neće, centrifugalne sile koje će biti oslobođene bit će demonske, i uništiti će Europsku uniju. I to će biti katastrofalno, ne samo za Europu nego za cijelu globalnu ekonomiju.
We are probably the largest economy in the world. And if we allow ourselves to fall into a route of the postmodern 1930's, which seems to me to be what we are doing, then that will be detrimental to the future of Europeans and non-Europeans alike.
Mi smo vjerojatno najveća ekonomija na svijetu. I ako si mi dozvolimo da upadnemo u pravac postmodernih 1930.-tih, a meni se čini da je to ono što radimo, tada će to biti na uštrb budućih Europljana kao i ne-europljana.
BG: We definitely hope you are wrong on that point. Yanis, thank you for coming to TED.
BG: Definitivno se nadamo da ste u krivu o tome. Yanis, hvala na dolasku na TED.
YV: Thank you.
YV: Hvala vama.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)