1--"Give me liberty or give me death."

2--When Patrick Henry, the governor of Virginia, said these words in 1775,

3--he could never have imagined

4--just how much they would come to resonate with American generations to come.

5--At the time, these words were earmarked

6--and targeted against the British,

7--but over the last 200 years, they've come to embody

8--what many Westerners believe,

9--that freedom is the most cherished value,

10--and that the best systems of politics and economics

11--have freedom embedded in them.

12--Who could blame them?

13--Over the past hundred years, the combination

14--of liberal democracy and private capitalism

15--has helped to catapult the United States

16--and Western countries

17--to new levels of economic development.

18--In the United States over the past hundred years,

19--incomes have increased 30 times,

20--and hundreds of thousands of people have been moved out of poverty.

21--Meanwhile, American ingenuity and innovation has helped to spur industrialization

22--and also helped in the creation and the building

23--of things like household appliances

24--such as refrigerators and televisions,

25--motor vehicles and even the mobile phones in your pockets.

26--It's no surprise, then, that even at the depths

27--of the private capitalism crisis,

28--President Obama said,

29--"The question before us is not whether the market

30--is a force for good or ill.

31--Its power to generate wealth and to expand freedom

32--is unmatched."

33--Thus, there's understandably

34--a deep-seated presumption among Westerners

35--that the whole world will decide to adopt

36--private capitalism as the model of economic growth, liberal democracy, and will continue

37--to prioritize political rights over economic rights.

38--However, to many who live in the emerging markets,

39--this is an illusion, and even though the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,

40--which was signed in 1948,

41--was unanimously adopted,

42--what it did was to mask a schism

43--that has emerged between developed and developing countries,

44--and the ideological beliefs

45--between political and economic rights.

46--This schism has only grown wider.

47--Today, many people who live in the emerging markets,

48--where 90 percent of the world's population lives,

49--believe that the Western obsession

50--with political rights is beside the point,

51--and what is actually important is delivering on food, shelter,

52--education and healthcare.

53--"Give me liberty or give me death"

54--is all well and good if you can afford it,

55--but if you're living on less than one dollar a day,

56--you're far too busy trying to survive

57--and to provide for your family

58--than to spend your time going around

59--trying to proclaim and defend democracy.

60--Now, I know many people in this room

61--and around the world will think,

62--"Well actually, this is hard to grasp,"

63--because private capitalism and liberal democracy

64--are held sacrosanct.

65--But I ask you today, what would you do

66--if you had to choose?

67--What if you had to choose

68--between a roof over your head

69--and the right to vote?

70--Over the last 10 years,

71--I've had the privilege to travel to over 60 countries,

72--many of them in the emerging markets,

73--in Latin America, Asia,

74--and my own continent of Africa.

75--I've met with presidents, dissidents,

76--policymakers, lawyers, teachers,

77--doctors and the man on the street,

78--and through these conversations,

79--it's become clear to me

80--that many people in the emerging markets

81--believe that there's actually a split occurring

82--between what people believe ideologically

83--in terms of politics and economics in the West

84--and that which people believe in the rest of the world.

85--Now, don't get me wrong.

86--I'm not saying people in the emerging markets

87--don't understand democracy,nor am I saying that they wouldn't ideally

88--like to pick their presidents or their leaders.Of course they would.

89--However, I am saying that on balance,

90--they worry more about

91--where their living standard improvements are going to come from,

92--and how it is their governments can deliver for them,

93--than whether or not the government

94--was elected by democracy.

95--The fact of the matter

96--is that this has become a very poignant question

97--because there is for the first time in a long time

98--a real challenge to the Western ideological systems

99--of politics and economics,

100--and this is a system that is embodied by China.

101--And rather than have private capitalism, they have state capitalism.

102--Instead of liberal democracy, they have de-prioritized the democratic system.

103--And they have also decided to prioritize

104--economic growth over political rights.

105--I put it to you today that it is this system

106--that is embodied by China that is gathering momentum amongst people

107--in the emerging markets as the system to follow,

108--because they believe increasingly that it is the system

109--that will promise the best and fastest improvements

110--in living standards in the shortest period of time.

111--If you will indulge me, I will spend a few moments

112--explaining to you first

113--why economically they've come to this belief.

114--First of all, it's China's economic performance over the past 30 years.

115--She's been able to produce record economic growth

116--and meaningfully move many people out of poverty,

117--specifically putting a meaningful dent in poverty

118--by moving over 300 million people

119--(into...) out of indigence.

120--It's not just in economics,

121--but it's also in terms of living standards.

122--We see that in China, 28 percent of people

123--had secondary school access.

124--Today, it's closer to 82 percent.

125--So in its totality, economic improvement has been quite significant.

126--Second, China has been able

127--to meaningfully improve its income inequality

128--without changing the political construct.

129--Today, the United States and China

130--are the two leading economies in the world.

131--They have vastly different political systems and different economic systems,

132--one with private capitalism,

133--another one broadly with state capitalism.

134--However, these two countries

135--have the identical GINI Coefficient,

136--which is a measure of income equality.

137--Perhaps what is more disturbing is that China's income equality

138--has been improving in recent times,

139--whereas that of the United States

140--has been declining.

141--Thirdly, people in the emerging markets

142--look at China's amazing and legendary

143--infrastructure rollout.

144--This is not just about China

145--building roads and ports and railways

146--in her own country --

147--she's been able to build 85,000 kilometers

148--of road network in China and surpass that of the United States --

149--but even if you look to places like Africa,

150--China has been able to help tar the distance

151--of Cape Town to Cairo,

152--which is 9,000 miles,

153--or three times the distance of New York to California.

154--Now this is something that people can see and point to.

155--Perhaps it's no surprise

156--that in a 2007 Pew survey, when surveyed,

157--Africans in 10 countries said

158--they thought that the Chinese were doing

159--amazing things to improve their livelihoods

160--by wide margins, by as much as 98 percent.

161--Finally, China is also providing innovative solutions

162--to age-old social problems that the world faces.

163--If you travel to Mogadishu, Mexico City or Mumbai,

164--you find that dilapidated infrastructure and logistics

165--continue to be a stumbling block

166--to the delivery of medicine and healthcare

167--in the rural areas.

168--However, through a network of state-owned enterprises,

169--the Chinese have been able to go into these rural areas,

170--using their companies

171--to help deliver on these healthcare solutions.

172--Ladies and gentlemen, it's no surprise

173--that around the world, people are pointing at what China is doing and saying,

174--"I like that. I want that.

175--I want to be able to do what China's doing. That is the system that seems to work."

176--I'm here to also tell you

177--that there are lots of shifts occurring

178--around what China is doing

179--in the democratic stance.

180--In particular, there is growing doubt

181--among people in the emerging markets,

182--when people now believe that democracy

183--is no longer to be viewed

184--as a prerequisite for economic growth.

185--In fact, countries like Taiwan, Singapore, Chile,

186--not just China, have shown that actually,

187--it's economic growth that is a prerequisite

188--for democracy.

189--In a recent study, the evidence has shown

190--that income is the greatest determinant

191--of how long a democracy can last.

192--The study found that if your per capita income

193--is about 1,000 dollars a year,

194--your democracy will last about eight and a half years.

195--If your per capita income is between

196--2,000 and 4,000 dollars per year,

197--then you're likely to only get 33 years of democracy.

198--And only if your per capita income

199--is above 6,000 dollars a year

200--will you have democracy come hell or high water.

201--What this is telling us

202--is that we need to first establish a middle class

203--that is able to hold the government accountable.

204--But perhaps it's also telling us

205--that we should be worried about going

206--around the world and shoehorning democracy,

207--because ultimately we run the risk

208--of ending up with illiberal democracies,

209--democracies that in some sense

210--could be worse than the authoritarian governments

211--that they seek to replace.

212--The evidence around illiberal democracies

213--is quite depressing.

214--Freedom House finds that although 50 percent of the world's countries today are democratic,

215--70 percent of those countries are illiberal

216--in the sense that people don't have free speech

217--or freedom of movement.

218--But also, we're finding from Freedom House

219--in a study that they published last year

220--that freedom has been on the decline

221--every year for the past seven years.

222--What this says

223--is that for people like me

224--who care about liberal democracy,

225--is we've got to find a more sustainable way

226--of ensuring that we have a sustainable form

227--of democracy in a liberal way,

228--and that has its roots in economics.

229--But it also says that as China moves

230--toward being the largest economy in the world,

231--something that is expected to happen

232--by experts in 2016,

233--that this schism between the political

234--and economic ideologies of the West and the rest

235--is likely to widen.

236--What might that world look like?

237--Well, the world could look like

238--more state involvement and state capitalism;

239--greater protectionisms of nation-states;

240--but also, as I just pointed out a moment ago, ever-declining political rights

241--and individual rights.

242--The question that is left for us in general

243--is, what then should the West be doing?

244--And I suggest that they have two options. The West can either compete or cooperate.

245--If the West chooses to compete with the Chinese model,

246--and in effect go around the world

247--and continue to try and push an agenda

248--of private capitalism and liberal democracy,

249--this is basically going against headwinds,

250--but it also would be a natural stance

251--for the West to take

252--because in many ways it is the antithesis

253--of the Chinese model

254--of de-prioritizing democracy, and state capitalism.

255--Now the fact of the matter is,

256--if the West decides to compete,

257--it will create a wider schism.

258--The other option is for the West to cooperate,

259--and by cooperating I mean giving the emerging market countries the flexibility

260--to figure out in an organic way

261--what political and economic system

262--works best for them.

263--Now I'm sure some of you in the room

264--will be thinking, well, this is like ceding to China, and this is a way, in other words,

265--for the West to take a back seat.

266--But I put it to you that if the United States and European countries

267--want to remain globally influential,

268--they may have to consider cooperating

269--in the short term in order to compete,

270--and by that, they might have to focus more aggressively on economic outcomes

271--to help create the middle class

272--and therefore be able to hold government accountable

273--and create the democracies that we really want.

274--The fact of the matter is that instead of going around the world

275--and haranguing countries for engaging with China,

276--the West should be encouraging its own businesses to trade and invest in these regions.

277--Instead of criticizing China for bad behavior,

278--the West should be showing how it is

279--that their own system of politics and economics

280--is the superior one.

281--And instead of shoehorning democracy

282--around the world,

283--perhaps the West should take a leaf

284--out of its own history book

285--and remember that it takes a lot of patience in order to develop the models

286--and the systems that you have today.

287--Indeed, the Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer

288--reminds us that it took the United States

289--nearly 170 years

290--from the time that the Constitution was written

291--for there to be equal rights in the United States. Some people would argue that today

292--there is still no equal rights.

293--In fact, there are groups who would argue

294--that they still do not have equal rights under the law.

295--At its very best,

296--the Western model speaks for itself.

297--It's the model that put food on the table.

298--It's the refrigerators.

299--It put a man on the moon. But the fact of the matter is,

300--although people back in the day

301--used to point at the Western countries and say,

302--"I want that, I like that,"

303--there's now a new person in town

304--in the form of a country, China.

305--Today, generations are looking at China

306--and saying, "China can produce infrastructure,

307--China can produce economic growth,

308--and we like that."

309--Because ultimately, the question before us,

310--and the question before

311--seven billion people on the planet is, how can we create prosperity?

312--People who care and will pivot towards the model

313--of politics and economics

314--in a very rational way,

315--to those models that will ensure that they can have better living standards

316--in the shortest period of time.

317--As you leave here today,

318--I would like to leave you

319--with a very personal message,

320--which is what it is that I believe

321--we should be doing as individuals,

322--and this is really about being open-minded,

323--open-minded to the fact that our hopes and dreams

324--of creating prosperity for people around the world,

325--creating and meaningfully putting a dent in poverty

326--for hundreds of millions of people,

327--has to be based in being open-minded,

328--because these systems have good things

329--and they have bad things.

330--Just to illustrate,

331--I've went into my annals of myself.

332--That's a picture of me.

333--Awww. (Laughter)

334--I was born and raised in Zambia in 1969.

335--At the time of my birth,

336--blacks were not issued birth certificates,

337--and that law only changed in 1973.

338--This is an affidavit from the Zambian government.

339--I bring this to you to tell you that in 40 years,

340--I've gone from not being recognized as a human being

341--to standing in front of the illustrious TED crowd today

342--to talk to you about my views.

343--In this vein, we can increase economic growth.

344--We can meaningfully put a dent in poverty.

345--But also, it's going to require

346--that we look at our assumptions,

347--assumptions and strictures that we've grown up with

348--around democracy, around private capitalism, around what creates economic growth

349--and reduces poverty and creates freedoms.

350--We might have to tear those books up

351--and start to look at other options and be open-minded to seek the truth.

352--Ultimately, it's about transforming the world

353--and making it a better place.

354--Thank you very much.

355--(Applause)