Photo: James Duncan Davidson

Harvard Business School professor Michael Porter is here to make the case that business can help tackle social problems. Issues such as healthcare, access to water and climate change are bread-and-butter concerns for TEDsters in the room, who clearly agree with his early statement that we’re all very aware that these problems exist. Many of them also clearly agree with his analysis that business is often seen as the problem, not the answer.

Here’s the problem with the problem. The systems that we’ve developed to deal with social issues, including NGOs and philanthropies, are well-meaning and motivated, but they’re not designed to scale. “The awkward reality is that we’re not making fast enough progress. We’re not winning,” says Porter. “These problems seem very daunting and intractable. Any solutions we’re achieving are small solutions, incremental progress.”

The issue: the current model doesn’t have nearly enough resources to finance the necessary change. We need to confront this issue head-on. “How do we create resources?” asks Porter. His answer: via business, which creates wealth when it meets its own needs and makes a profit. That’s a simple equation that leads to taxes, incomes, charitable donations and so on. “Only business can create resources,” he says. “So the question then is, how do we tap into that?” He shows a slide showing the split of revenue within the United States: Corporations dominate. “Profit is the magic. You might say ‘ugh’ to that,” he says, (Indeed, many of the audience members do just that.) “But that profit allows whatever solution we have created to be infinitely scalable.”

Through his work as a strategy professor and advisor to global multinational corporations, as well as the founder of various nonprofits, Porter has come to see a shift in business processes in recent years, away from seeing social problems as a side project and toward treating them as central to the core business model. This subverts the conventional wisdom that either social performance or economic performance could thrive, but not both. Where issues like environmental sensitivity once seemed like unnecessary frippery or a marketing “nice to have,” now they’re seen as solutions to solve — and drive profits.

Photo: James Duncan Davidson

“Issue by issue, we have started to learn there is no tradeoff between social progress and economic efficiency in any fundamental sense,” Porter says. Good business and good social practices are not fundamentally opposed. And companies are catching on. He has some examples: Dow Chemical is developing healthier oils that replace transfat or saturated fat products. Jain Irrigation has brought drip irrigation to farmers–and reduced the need for excessive water usage. The Brazilian company Fibria has planted eucalyptus to harvest for paper, protecting old-growth forests. Cisco has trained four million people, not to “be responsible” but to disseminate IT technology and grow its own business. “There is a fundamental opportunity for business today to impact and address these social problems,” Porter says. “This is the largest business opportunity we see.”

He’s dubbed it “shared value” (indeed, it’s the topic of a feature article he wrote for the Harvard Business Review) and he calls it “a higher kind of capitalism.” More and more companies are embracing the philosophy, and more will do so in the future. The key now, Poster says, is to support deeper collaboration between NGOs, governments and businesses, to have all entities pull together in the same direction in the name of progress. “NGOs that are really moving the needle have found partnerships and ways to collaborate,” he says. “Governments that are making progress are enabling shared value in business rather than seeing government as the only player.” Rethinking kneejerk antipathy towards business and fostering collaboration and competition might just provide the scale necessary to solve some seemingly unsolvable problems.

Samantha Power (left) and Jennifer Pahlka (right) speak at TED2008 and TED2012, respectively.

Today, Barack Obama will be naming a new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations – and sources say that it will be Samantha Power, outspoken anti-genocide official and TED2008 speaker. Power is expected to replace Susan Rice, who sources say will be named national security advisor.

Samantha Power on a complicated heroPower is a fascinating choice for this very important role. She’s been a longtime aide to Obama; when the president established an Atrocities Prevention Board in 2012, he named Power as its chair. Power also served as the National Security Staff’s Senior Director for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights from the beginning of Obama’s term through February 2013, when she left to spend time with her husband and two small children. A statement at the time said she was “likely to return to the administration.”

Power’s TED Talk gives us the feeling that she will deeply embrace her role as UN ambassador. At TED2008, she spoke with intense passion about the rise of the anti-genocide movement in the United States in recent years. She also tells the story of Sergio Vieira de Mello of Brazil, a UN diplomat for 34 years who was killed in a suicide bombing in Iraq in 2003. Listen as she tells the story of how he tiptoed across difficult moral lines to save lives in the world’s most broken places, and the lessons she learned from his career.

Meanwhile, Jennifer Pahlka — founder and executive director of Code for America and a TED2012 speaker – announced big news of her own. She is joining the staff of the Office of Science and Technology Policy at the White House, serving as the Deputy Chief Technology Officer for Government Innovation for the a year.Jennifer Pahlka: Coding a better government In a blog post, she writes that she’s taking the role for two reasons –  to help the government embrace technological innovations, and to gain a deeper understanding of what it’s like to work inside government for when she returns to Code for America.

We’ll be closely watching what Pahlka does in this new role. In her TED Talk, she asks people who’ve given up on government to give their withdrawal a closer look. “Technology is making it possible to fundamentally reframe the function of government in a way that can actually scale by strengthening civil society,” Pahlka says. “And there’s a generation out there that’s grown up on the Internet, and they know that it’s not that hard to do things together – you just have to architect the systems the right way.”

Underlying that disappointment is a central corruption in our electoral system, says legal activist Lawrence Lessig: the fact that Congressional candidates depend on funding from a tiny percentage of citizens, who in turn control what the rest of us get to vote on. Lawrence Lessig: We the People, and the Republic we must reclaim That’s the argument at the core of his blistering talk from TED2013. In his new TED Book, Lesterland, Lessig takes a deeper look at the problem and describes a powerful method for fixing this broken system.

In the great literary tradition of metaphors, Lessig has created Lesterland, a large country run by a small group of people named Lester. In the book, he uses Lesterland to describe what happens when the wealthy control the powerful. While political corruption is not new, Lessig believes we now have both the technology and the social media tools needed to expose and strike at the root of this corruption. To hear more about his ideas, and how he arrived at this metaphor, we caught up with Lessig and asked him a few questions.

Your book paints a pretty grim view that our political system is undermined by money and corruption. How did we allow this to happen? 

We allowed it to happen simply because we’re busy with our lives: We’ve got jobs, or kids, or hobbies — maybe all together! We expect the Congress to do their job. Most of us don’t have the patience to try to keep up.

Why has this system of corruption taken hold so firmly?

Because it pays so well. K Street — where most lobbyist offices are in Washington, D.C. — has become one of the most profitable businesses in America. And they have convinced other businesses across America that they need K Street. So the cycle feeds itself: businesses pay lobbyists; lobbyists channel money to politicians; politicians reward the businesses.

What gives you hope that we can change this cycle?

The only hope is that most Americans get this and — if pushed — will create the political force to change it. What we need to do now is to push them.

How do we do that? What can the average person do?

The first step is to get involved. I started an organization called Rootstrikers — inspired by Thoreau’s quote: “there are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one striking at the root” — which recruits citizen teachers: people who recognize the corrupting influence of money and who are willing to help spread this message. At Rootstrikers you can be assigned tasks to help do that essential work. If we’re successful, then we will create the political conditions necessary to make reform possible.

Any other specific ideas you have for how we can turn things around?

The problem isn’t simple, but the first step is a no-brainer: We have to change the way elections are funded. If we change that, we make every other change possible. If I were King for a Day, at a minimum, I’d enact John Sarbanes’ Grassroots Democracy Act. More ambitiously, I’d enact the American Anti-Corruption Act put forwarded by the Represent.us organization.

What are the consequences of the corrupt and money-driven system we live with?

It’s very simple — a government that doesn’t work, or if it does, not for us. None of the most important issues facing us today can be addressed sensibly given the senselessness of this system: climate change, health care, financial reform, food safety, a tax system, the debt, inequality. You name it, and I’ll tie it to the money.

The folks who are pulling the strings — the Lesters — have a lot to lose if your ideas are implemented. Do you expect to see an active quashing of your ideas?

The closer we get, the more they will squeal. We need to have in place the political force that can overcome that squeal.

Lesterland is available for Kindle and Nook, as well as through the iBookstore. Or download the TED Books app for your iPad or iPhone.

Read an excerpt »

All around the globe, people are feeling increasingly skeptical and mistrustful of their leaders. According to one global trust barometer, only 52% of survey respondents said that they trusted their government to do the right thing in 2011 and, in 2012, the number plummeted to 43%. As recent surveys reveal, only 18% of Italians believe their vote matters, just 15% of Greeks says that pulling a lever makes a difference and a scant 20% of Americans agree that their government makes good decisions. Meanwhile, Japan and South Korea suffered 26- and 17-point declines in government trust ratings this year, respectively.

These are all democracies. Which means that citizens do not trust the very people they voted into office.

In his new TED Book, In Mistrust We Trust: Can Democracy Survive When We Don’t Trust Our Leaders?, political scientist Ivan Krastev takes a deeper look at why this is happening and what can be done to turn the tide. While his thoughts often aren’t optimistic (“I’m Bulgarian,” he says in his TED Talk, “and we are the most pessimistic people in the world”), they are hugely important. In this book, he sounds a loud warning bell on a stark change in perception.

We gave Krastev a call to talk more about what he calls “democracy in crisis,” and to see what he thinks can be done to improve the relationship between citizens and their leaders.

Why is the concept of a democracy in crisis?

Democracy has always been in crisis: democracy is all about practicing the art of bearable dissatisfaction. In democratic societies, people often complain about their leaders and their institutions. The gap between the ideal democracy and the existing one cannot be bridged.

The movie legend Cary Grant once arrived at a Hollywood charity function and, deploying every ounce of his charm told the difficult woman at the welcome desk that he had forgotten his ticket. Without looking up she cut him short, “You don’t have a ticket, you can’t go in.” “I understand,” he said, “but . . . I’m Cary Grant.” The woman looked up at him and gave her final verdict, “You don’t look like Cary Grant.” “Nobody does,” responded the actor. And he was right. In real life nobody — not even Cary Grant himself — looks like Cary Grant on the screen.

Democracy we dream about is never the same as democracy we live in. But the fact that the existing democracies as a rule are imperfect has never been a reason to prevent us from respecting them, making use of them, improving them and even being ready to die for them. What makes me worry today is the alarming decline in the trust in democratic institutions — political parties, Parliaments, political leaders. Less and less people are going to the polls in most advanced democracies. The people least interested in voting are the poor, unemployed and the young — those who should be most interested in using the political system to improve their lot. What makes current crisis of democracy special is that today democracy seems to fall victim not of its failures but of its successes. Our societies are more democratic than ever but our public institutions are less trusted; the citizens in the West are freer than ever before but voters feel less powerful than yesterday.

When you push people to reflect on, “Do you feel empowered? Do you really believe that you can influence politics?” many people in very well-established democracies don’t believe that their voice matters anymore. For example, the latest data for Greece and Italy is that only 15% of Greeks and 18% of Italians believe that their voice really matters.

If democracies are so problematic, why do so many countries aspire to become democracies?

You do not always need to fall in love with somebody else in order to leave your wife or husband. The crisis of democracy in the West is not the result of falling in love with another system. In Europe and America people who are disillusioned with democracy do not dream about the Chinese model or any other form of authoritarian rule. They do not dream about government that controls Internet and puts in prison those daring to disagree.

Authoritarianism is not pretending anymore to be a real alternative to democracy, but we can see many more authoritarian practices and styles basically being smuggled into democratic governments.

Paradoxically, part of the problems of democracy is that today almost everybody claims his sympathy for the principle of self-government. Elections are the only source of legitimate government. Even religious fundamentalists who still insist that power derives from God tend to agree that the best way to interpret God’s will is to count the ballots on election day. In short, democracy is the only game in town but many people start asking themselves: is it a game worth playing? Do the voters have the power to bring meaningful change? Could they change, for example, economic policies or could they only change governments who at the end of the day implement the same economic policy? Today politicians often insist that when it comes to economy “there is no alternative” but if there are no alternatives, could there be democracy? When politicians justify their policies not with the argument that these are the best policies — or even the better policies — but simply with the argument that these are the only possible policies … the meaning of democracy is changed.

What can be done to improve the interaction between our leaders and the citizens? 

The fact that a growing number of people are mistrustful of the politicians who govern them is good news for democracy. The critical argument of my book is that in order for democracy to function, people need to have a real choice and a shared purpose.

“It’s not the voting that’s democracy,” remarked the playwright Tom Stoppard, “it’s the counting.” In this sense, monitoring those in power is of great importance. But transparent policy is not the same as good policy. The book argues that the hope that transparency can revive the trust in democratic institutions and leaders is a dangerous illusion. Transparency will not restore trust — it will reduce politics to the management of mistrust. What we lack dramatically today is what I call democratic reformism — political actions that are not just control of those in power or pressure for a certain cause or in favor of a certain group, but a political strategy that tries to envision the improvement of society as a whole.

Has the advent of new technologies made us more or less trustful?

The current crisis of democracy is not the outcome of the new technologies but it is also naïve to believe that new technologies can by themselves present the answer to the agonizing questions that representative democracy faces today. The new technologies radically empowered the individual and made new ways of making politics and mobilizing society possible, but they also made politics more difficult because the citizen grew less interested in compromise and looking for the support of others in order to achieve what is most important for him.

Somebody asked me recently to try to imagine the fate of Desdemona in the age of the new technologies. Would it not have been easier for her to convince Othello of her innocence if she could have relied on the security cameras recording the movements in and out of her house? It might have been. But one can also imagine that in the age of technically superb manipulation, Desdemona’s fate would have been the same. Security cameras are not the ones that kill trust, but they also cannot be expected to resurrect it.

America just avoided going over the “fiscal cliff,” but it looks like our leaders have lost their ability to reach consensus. Is this a symptom of democracy in crisis?

In the last decade, American democracy has been turned into a game of chicken, in which preventing the other side from governing is more important than governing yourself. From 2008 to 2012, Republicans in Congress have used the filibuster as often as it was deployed in the whole seven decades between World War I and the end of Ronald Reagan’s second term. This fact alone makes democracy look ungovernable.

Viewed from Europe, the U.S. looks like a dysfunctional post-communist democracy in which politics is an ungovernable zero-sum game. Compromise has become more difficult than ever because most Congressmen and Senators come from a one-party state where you are rewarded for non-compromising.

Recently a friend of mine said that they’re working on software that, any moment a politician is giving a statement on an issue, automatically shows the different positions on the same issue he or she has taken.  And this is perceived as a great contribution to democracy because you can show that a politician is changing his view. But democracy is not about people not changing their views. The most important figure in democratic politics is not the guy who is not changing his view. The most important and positive hero for the democratic society is somebody who is ready to change his views after a rational argument. If I cannot change the politician’s view, even giving him a very strong argument against his position, he’s either an idiot or a fanatic. I’m afraid because these type of technologies are making consistency more important than reasonability.

Does if affect how European democracies view the Americans?

From the American perspective, European democracies resemble decaying semi-authoritarian regimes in which elites make all their choices behind the backs of voters. In some sense, the difference in the American and European elite responses to constraints on democratic politics in the age of globalization resembles the contrast between the Hollywood movie and the French experimental novel. American politicians hope to keep voters interested in politics by retaining a traditional plot, with black and white choices. European politicians, however, ditched the plot and worked instead to convince voters to focus on the style and sophistication of the writing. In the U.S., the risk is that voters will at some point realize that although their political representatives disagree on nearly everything, their economic policies are awfully similar. It is here where the anti-elite resentment skyrockets and people are ready to endorse radical platforms. In Europe, the risk is that voters will simply stop “reading”; in other words, the non-voter will become the protagonist of European politics.

What got you interested in thinking about problems with democracy?

It’s very personal. I was 24-years-old when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. And on one level, of course, democracy was extremely important for our generation. But on the other hand, we learned in 1989 how fragile the world is. For a long time, in my youth, we had been told that the problems of socialism could be cured with more socialism. So when I hear people talking about their problem with democracy, but we’re curing the problems of democracies with more democracy, I decided that I needed to look at what we’re talking about.

.
In Mistrust We Trust is available for the Kindle and Nook, as well as through the iBookstore. Or download the TED Books app for your iPad or iPhone and get a subscription.

In the final days of 2012, as Congress worked to hammer out a last-minute deal to avoid the fiscal cliff, it was difficult to turn on any American news source and not see political finger-pointing. Words like “extremist,” “angry” and “sharply divided” floated in the ether.

Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has long been interested in how political choices are made — at TED2008, he delved into “the moral roots of liberals and conservatives.” So he seemed like the perfect speaker to invite to our New York office to tackle the question: can’t we all just get along?

His answer in short: yes. But the key is to understand that all of us are facing the same looming dangers, and make some critical changes in Congress that will allow us to work together on them.

Haidt begins today’s talk with an unsettling statement: A pack of giant asteroids are headed for the United States, and they will hit within 50 years. These, of course, are metaphorical asteroids. Says Haidt, “I’m talking about threats that are headed our way that are wrapped in a special energy field that polarizes us, and therefore paralyzes us.”

“Our problem — and our tragedy — is that in these hyper-partisan times, the mere fact that one side says, ‘Hey look! There’s an asteroid,’ means that the other side says ‘Huh? What? I’m not even going to look up,’” says Haidt. In this talk, he looks at the social psychology that leads us into this mess. “One of the most important principles of morality is that it binds and blinds: It binds us into teams that circle around sacred values but thereby makes us go blind to objective reality.”

In today’s must-see talk, Haidt gives powerful suggestions for how politicians and everyday Joes can get past the rhetoric and see that the other side usually has a point. His challenge to each and every one of us: to see all four asteroids.

After digesting Haidt’s talk, we still had many questions. So we called Haidt in his office to chat more on this issue.

Your talk got me thinking — on a personal level, what should I be doing and saying and thinking every day to defuse these tensions and break through a party lens?

Great question! I think the key is for us to all think about the word “demonization,” and do what we can to tone it down. That doesn’t mean that we all have to become centrists. My ideal is that we all have more constructive disagreement. So when you hear someone criticize a policy on the other side, that’s fine. But when you start hearing motive-mongering and demonization, stand up to it just as you would if it were something that was racist or sexist. If we avoid the demonization, disagreements can be positive.

Are there other key terms that you would love to see disappear from our political vocabulary?

“Extremist” is an easy one, because extremist just means somebody on the other side. Overall, we do need to watch our language — but it’s not so much specific words. It’s the claims that people on the other side are motivated by evil motives. The key to toning down demonization is to actually get to know some people on the other side and to build relationships with them. If your friend tells you something, you don’t demonize, you listen. But if your opponent does it, you jump right into lawyer mode and say, “Here are 10 reasons why you’re wrong.”

There was so much tension in Congress over the fiscal cliff. Do you think the kind of stalemate that we’ve been seeing is the natural product of a two-party system?

I don’t. A two-party system can work beautifully if there are other conditions that pull for moderation. But not if you systematically remove those conditions — like privacy to negotiate in secret. Now that we have C-SPAN and everything is televised, there is essentially no deliberation done on the floor of either chamber. So I think the two-party system as we presently have it is completely dysfunctional.

What do you think are the big differences between compromising on economic issues and compromising on social issues? Or have they both been so moralized that there’s no difference?

Economic issues are just as much moral issues as social issues. With the economic issues, however, such unbelievably vast amounts of money are at stake that unbelievably vaster amounts of money are spent on lobbying. Research shows that whatever political preferences the wealthiest few percent of the citizens have tends to be enacted into law.

So if social issues are not about money, where does that moral might come from?

If you assume that democracy is somehow supposed to reflect the will of the majority, then you would be interested in looking at the ways that reality diverges from that. On social issues, it diverges because it’s not the will of the majority — it’s the will of the most vocal. So on issues like gun control and abortion rights, it’s a question of: Who is most angry? Who is most energized?

Speaking of gun control, what do you think will happen on that issue? Do you see the right and the left uniting around the issue of gun violence anytime soon? It feels like, following the national horror of the Newtown massacre, there could be some consensus on this.

I see no sign that there will be any left-right agreement on this. If it was clear that gun control would greatly reduce the frequency of these atrocities, then I think we might see some movement. But it’s not clear. We did in fact have an assault weapons ban in the ’90s and it apparently didn’t do very much. As long as there’s any ambiguity, people are going to find evidence for whatever they want to believe.

For me, I find gun control to be the absolute number one social issue that I have the most difficulty seeing the other side of. What is the primary moral value that plays into being against stricter gun control?

Conservatives tend to see the world more in terms of good-versus-evil and, for some of them, the nightmare is a disarmed citizenry that can be preyed upon by criminals. They know that having a gun in the house would increase the risk of an accident for a member of their family, but they’re willing to take that risk.

Liberals are more prone to utopianism. For example, some liberals proposed that we should have gun-free communities, and we should put signs on them saying, “This is a gun-free community” — which of course conservatives made fun of, because you’re basically saying, “Come in and rob us! Don’t worry about getting shot!” Liberals are horrified by violence, and especially violence against children. So they demand a policy response. And while I want a policy response too, I think we have to make the response be based in the research on what will actually work.

We’ve talked about the left-right divide in politics, and I’m curious about what you’ve seen as a professor in the academic world. How similar or different is that dynamic?

In the academic world, most fields have gone from being predominantly liberal to being overwhelmingly liberal. It’s been a part of this general polarization of our society since the 1970s. There used to be liberal Republicans and there used to be conservative Democrats, but beginning in the ’60s — once Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act — we got the moral purification of the two parties. So the change first happens in Congress, and then once the two parties become purified, it’s like this giant electromagnet cranks up and starts ripping apart everything else. My own field of social psychology has always leaned to the left, but in the last 20 or 30 years the minority of conservatives has shrunk to be undetectable. And this is a problem for scholarship, I believe.

What do you think can be done about that?

Fortunately, we are the world’s experts in how to promote diversity. People are beginning to recognize that we need to be more careful about the things we say — about the things that might inadvertently create a hostile climate. But the larger picture is that polarization emanates from the elites. Congress and the media have become so amazingly polarized in the last 20 or 30 years; this then drives polarization in so many other realms of society.

In the House of Representatives, most districts are gerrymandered to some extent, and that means that there is very little payoff to a representative to be a centrist or a moderate. We can’t change the social trends that have contributed to polarization, but there are a lot of institutional changes that could be made: we can change the filibuster, we can change the way elections are run so that there are more open primaries, we can change the role of party leadership. At present, party leaders have so much power that they can enforce conformity by punishing any member who thinks for himself. The group NoLabels.org has a set of policy changes that could be adopted within the next few months.

I don’t blame the senators and representatives. Congress is full of good, decent, smart people who have devoted their lives to public service. They have come to Washington to try to make things better, and they are all frustrated as hell because they can’t do it. The system forces them to play this eternal game of blue team versus red team — country be damned.

What about the media? How should we deal with the partisan influence of our news sources, and what would a better source look like?

This is very hard because, in a free market, anger and conflict sells, and calm, reasoned analysis is dull. The First Amendment does many good things for us, but it means that there’s very little that we can do in terms of regulating the media. The best idea that I’ve heard comes from Kathleen Hall Jamieson at the University of Pennsylvania, who is arguing that there is a legal warrant for us to hold television stations and cable stations liable for truth in advertising. When they air a political ad which is full of lies, it should be just as if they advertised for some kind of snake oil that claims to cure cancer. That’s one of the only ideas I’ve encountered. The media is one of the most difficult areas to change.

In your talk, you mentioned four asteroids. Are there any smaller asteroids that you didn’t get the chance to mention that we should be looking out for?

The idea of an asteroid is something that, if not attended to, will become even worse. Think about plastics and chemicals in our food supply. The FDA and the EPA are so limited in what they’re allowed to do, and we’re all exposed to massive amounts of chemicals. The left sees this and wants regulation — and the right says no.

Now, one that the right sees: declining national greatness. America was the greatest nation of the 20th century. It was a force for good in the world, and it is losing that. I do think that the right is concerned about declining national greatness, and I think they’re right to be.

Tell me about The Asteroids Club. What is it, and what kind of future do you see for it?

I was invited to give this TEDx talk on civility at TEDxMidAtlantic, and I developed the metaphor of asteroids coming at us. Just on a whim, I bought the website name AsteroidsClub.org. I had recently formed a working relationship with Liz Joyner and Steve Seibert, who run ToTheVillageSquare.org, and they had some ideas for how we could make this an actual club that brings people together. So we’re giving it a try.

Rather than looking for common ground, we’re just trying to get people to see multiple threats. This might be easier because you don’t have to say that you’re wrong about anything. A successful evening will be one in which the people on the other side can begin to see your asteroids and you can, perhaps for the first time, see theirs.

Something that you wrote in an op-ed for The New York Times last year really stuck with me. You said, “When your opponent is the devil, bargaining and compromise are themselves forms of sacrilege.” That is a really powerful statement. How, then, can we ever get people to listen to issues that they find so fundamentally threatening?

The first step is relationships. As our society gets more and more segregated by lifestyle — as the blue districts get bluer and the red districts get redder, as the Internet allows us to segregate into gated moral communities — we have to make the effort. I am hopeful that my book The Righteous Mind should give people at least some things to talk about. If you can, start off any conversation with praise, saying, “You and I may disagree on many things, but one thing I read about your side that I thought was interesting was that you folks believe X. Tell me more about that?” That is a completely different way of starting a conversation than with a challenge.

Most of us don’t get to meet people on the other side that often, and when you do, take a chance. If you’re the sort of person who comes to TED, who loves new ideas, well — the biggest single repository of new ideas that you’ve not been exposed to is probably going to be found on the other side of the political aisle.

Watch Watch Haidt talk about the Asteroids Club on MSNBC’s The Cycle >>

With his provocative new book, In Mistrust We Trust: Can Democracy Survive When We Don’t Trust Our Leaders?, political commentator Ivan Krastev explores this incongruity between our political head and heart. There has been a profound decline of the public’s trust in the performance of public institutions, he notes, which is an outcome of the voters’ sense of their lost power. Tech tools may help provide some openness to the machinations of the political machine, but they may just be putting a Band-Aid on an open wound. Ultimately, Krastev ponders whether we can enjoy the many rights of our society without enjoying real political choice or power.

His new TED Book looks at where to go from here. His bold question: can democracy survive?

In Mistrust We Trust is available for the Kindle and Nook, as well as through the iBookstore. Or download the TED Books app for your iPad or iPhone and get a subscription.

Tell us a bit about your personal journey into politics. What has been your driving force?

I didn’t really have an interest in politics when I first entered the workforce. What I wanted to do was help people who grew up like me.

When I was a kid growing up in Tucson, my father lost his job and we lost everything — including our home. We lived in an abandoned gas station for two years until we were able to get back on our feet. I worked hard to get good scholarships and got to Arizona State University with the help of Pell Grants. After I graduated, I got to work as a social worker in a part of town that was mostly populated by hardworking immigrant and refugee communities.

I got frustrated because I saw that no matter how hard these families worked, the system always worked against them. For them, making the choice between taking care of a sick family member and putting food on the table was a daily reality. And their kids’ pathway to success was being closed off by a system that underfunded their education.

After talking to my local elected representatives, I could see that nothing was going to change. Since then, I have worked a social worker and as a lawmaker with those families in mind. They are the reason I do what I do.



What does it mean to you to be the first openly bisexual member of Congress? What effect do you think this might have on LGBT issues in Arizona and beyond?

I’m thrilled that the 113th Congress is the most inclusive in our nation’s history — and I’m honored to be a part of that. My goal is to help make our country become more inclusive by helping to restore our middle class and protecting opportunity for every person. Arizona has had a unique history of electing openly LGBT folks from every party, in every level of government. We’re proud to see representation becoming more diverse with each election year. We now have more people of color, people of different faiths and different orientations serving in our state than ever before. It’s great step in the right direction.

Can you set the scene of finding out that you had won the race? Where were you, and what ran through your head in that moment?

While we were 2,100 votes ahead on election night, many votes remained to be counted. Over the next few days, our lead grew. Now that’s a nice feeling! On Monday morning, the race still hadn’t been “called” by the Associated Press. I got on a plane to go East for freshmen orientation, and when I landed and turned on my phone, I saw that I had 78 new text messages. I knew immediately it was about the election, and my first thought was, “Let’s get to work!”

What surprised you most about campaigning for the House of Representatives?

I was humbled by the force of our community, which stood up to millions of dollars in negative advertising. Our campaign faced a staggering number of TV attack ads aimed at my character. It was surprising to see huge wealthy corporations fuel that kind of ugly campaign. While this was happening, thousands of volunteers fueled our campaign by knocking on doors and making phone calls to talk to their neighbors about what this election was really about. In the end, it was ordinary people that helped us win this election, and that’s who I am going to look out for in Congress.

What issues do you hold nearest and dearest that you will be taking with you to Washington?

The number one thing I will take with me is my experience as a social worker who saw what happened to families who couldn’t find jobs, struggled to take care of their health and saw opportunity slipping away for their kids. I ran for Congress because politicians were fighting with each other instead of looking out for these families. In our campaign we said that if we wanted to change Congress, we have to change the people we send there. I think that’s what happened in this election. I’m optimistic about what we can accomplish in the 113th Congress by putting our sole focus on the families that elected us to get things done.

In your TED2012 Fellows Talk, you discussed building trust with politicians and companies by finding shared values. Can you talk a bit more about this approach, and give an example of what can be accomplished with it?

It’s the approach that I’ve learned works best in communities with so many diverse and differing opinions. There’s no better proof of this than my work in Arizona’s state legislature.

While I was always in the minority party and I disagreed with many of my colleagues on important issues, the one thing that we had in common was our love for our state and country. We were all elected to do something good for our communities. I took that simple principle to form authentic relationships with folks who were very different from me. It was through those relationships that we learned what we could accomplish together.

I’m thankful to have learned this early on, because it was through that work that I was able to pass bills that helped families and veterans — and stopped bills that hurt education and kids’ healthcare.


In what ways has the TED Fellowship experience affected your life and work?

I’ve had the great privilege of learning from some of the brightest innovators in the country. The exchange of ideas and ingenuity that TED promotes is exactly what we need in American government today — an openness to new ideas, and a willingness to experiment.

What are you most excited about once you take office? What are you most nervous about?

I’m excited to sit at the table with my new colleagues and get to know them right away. There’s a lot of work to do and little time to waste.

Sinema has served in the Arizona state legislature for seven years, while getting her Ph.D. in political science and working hard as a human rights activist and LGBT leader. In fact, Sinema’s election brings with it a first — she will be the first openly bisexual member of Congress.

“We’ve made history, and we’re proud of that,” Sinema told ABCNews.com today. “But what I am interested in is making history by making things better for the people of Arizona’s 9th Congressional District. I’m just humbled and excited to start working for the people of Arizona.”

Tonight, Sinema was recognized by Chelsea Clinton at the Glamour magazine Women of the Year Awards in New York City. In October, the magazine asked Sinema what she thought was the most important issue facing young women today. She answered, “Their right to make personal health care decisions. The Supreme Court is at tipping point and if a liberal jurist retires and a President Romney is in office to appoint a conservative, millions of American women could lose access to birth control and their right to make decisions on what’s best for their health and their family.”

As a New York Times article put it this morning, “The presidential campaign entered a delicate phase on Tuesday, suddenly becoming a sideshow to the hurricane.” In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, it’s hard to remember that in just a week, Americans will be heading to the polls and, with their presidential  selection, answering big questions about the future of the economy, education and their country’s place in this world.

In these 10 TEDxTalks, a global selection of speakers suggest altogether new ways of looking at these questions.

More banks, fewer problems: Scott Shay at TEDxWallStreet
Scott Shay is a small banker with a big idea: No more big banks. The way he sees it, the bigger they are, the harder they fall and the bigger the global disaster they can leave in their wake. At TEDxWallStreet, he appeals for a massive break-up — spreading out the risk, diversifying the field, lowering the dependency and creating a more secure financial system overall.

Be optimistic about the US and China: Geoffrey Garrett at TEDxSydney
Americans are unsure about what the future of China means for them. Many are apprehensive about its policies and even fearful of the competition escalating into a perilous rivalry. But Geoffrey Garrett thinks the US-China relationship is better than ever. At TEDxSydney, he outlines a vision of the future where codependent superpowers can peaceably exist.

A new Sudan: Tarig Hilal at TEDxKhartoum
A fresh start. It’s an idea emblazoned into the American psyche, from the Revolutionary war to westward migration and the history of immigration. Now, nations across Africa and the Middle East are looking for ways to start over for themselves. In this powerful talk from TEDxKhartoum, Tarig Hilal tells the story of a hopeful generation of Sudanese that are coming to terms with their past and setting a new direction for their country’s future. A story that can remind Americans what it means to start from scratch.

What are your universal rights? Philippe Sands at TEDxHousesofParliament
Political rhetoric for or against American involvement in global conflicts typically centers around investing in the best outcomes for America’s future — whether by swaying events to further the most amenable parties or initiating combat to topple potential security threats. In a call for consistent international conduct, Philippe Sands reframes intervention as a moral issue. He makes the case that no government should be free to abuse its citizens, that the rights of individuals supersede those of the state and that those rights must be protected by a powerful international force.

Can pre-school save the economy? Timothy Bartik at TEDxMiamiUniversity
During the course of this election candidates have put a lot of emphasis on STEM education as a way to invest in our future. There’s no doubt that it’s an essential endeavor; the benefits of creating a workforce with the skills to meet 21st century needs are self-evident. But what about early childhood education? Can a few years of structured play really make that much of a difference? Yes. Economist Timothy Bartik sheds light on the startling return on investment for each dollar we put into early childhood education.

Your engagement matters: Jefferson Smith at TEDxConcordiaUPortland
Who is responsible for making government work and for insuring that our policies and initiatives ultimately benefit everyone? Well, according to Jefferson Smith, everyone — and especially you. With a stirring call to action, he lays out the principles for a brand of civic engagement which has everyone lobby for their own needs, while being wise enough to recognize long term universal rewards.

What it means to be radical today: Julian Baggini at TEDxObserver
Many feel that the problems we face are simply too big for our current political systems and that we need to rethink our approach of capitalist democracy. But time and again — from universal suffrage to public education, from environmental regulation to social security — new legislation can dramatically change the lives of millions. Julian Baggini outlines the areas in our governments — regulations, mixed economies and proportional representation — where “piecemeal change can lead to wholesale transformation” in what he calls “rad hoc” action.

The aftermath of Occupy: Naomi Colvin at TEDxHousesofParliament
Last year, the Occupy Wall Street movement spread like wildfire across the globe. It sparked countless protests and its “We are the 99%” slogan has been canonized into the progressive lexicon. Just as quickly as it gained champions, however, it found critics from the left and right who dismiss the campaign for its inability to articulate specific demands. Naomi Colvin thinks they miss the point entirely; that the protests were not about rushing into specific negotiations based on conventional principles, but about disrupting the way we reform altogether. In this reflective talk, she lays out a new vision of political identity.

To be for the people, it must be by the people: Étienne Chouard at TEDxRepubliqueSquare
We all want an effective, efficient government that represents its citizens’ collective will. Do Americans have that kind of government? The answer isn’t so clear with a Congress locked in a spiral of partisan posturing, with financial powerhouses holding greater legislative clout than flesh-and-blood constituents and with a national electoral system that values votes differently depending on where those votes are cast. Many simply bemoan the quality of options and wait for better politicians. But what if those who could govern best don’t want power? In this impassioned talk, Étienne Chouard questions the very efficacy of voting itself.  He reaches into the deep history of democracy and urges us to reconsider a very old way of forming government: with randomly selected groups of citizens.

Who Americans will become: Priyank Shah at TEDxColumbus
Americans aren’t who they used to be. And they won’t be the same ten years from now. Demographer Priyank Shah shows you the future face of America and breaks down the effects of a rapidly diversifying society on an aging population.

Rory Stewart opens this talk from TEDxHousesofParliament with a joke:

“Little Billy goes to school and his teacher asks, ‘What does your father do?’ Billy replies, ‘My father plays piano in an opium den.’”

But when the teacher confronts the father about his occupation, she gets a different answer. As Stewart finishes the joke, “The father says, ‘I’m very sorry, yes, I lied. But how can I tell an 8-year-old boy that his father is a politician?’”

Stewart admits that people often look at him askew when he tells them that he is a Member of the British Parliament. And he believes that this is a very bad sign – that there appears to be a deep sense of disappointment with politicians across the globe. One of the issues, Stewart explains, is that in selling democracy to the rest of the world, several “side benefits” were promised – mainly, that democracy would bring peace, prosperity, security and non-violence. However, none of those things have proved true in Iraq, Afghanistan or Pakistan. In fact, these examples show that democracy can be compatible with deep instability.

“The point about democracy is not instrumental. It’s not about the things that it brings,” says Stewart. “The point about democracy is not that it delivers legitimate, effective, prosperous rule of law. It’s not that it guarantees peace with itself or its neighbors. The point about democracy is intrinsic. Democracy matters because it reflects an idea of equality and an idea of liberty. It reflects an idea of dignity of the individual — the idea that each individual should have an equal vote and equal say in the formation of their government.”

He adds, “Democracy isn’t a question of structures — it is a state of mind. ”

Stewart believes that it is possible to rebuild democracy from here. But to do so will take honesty. Politicians will have to admit when they don’t know answer and not pretend to be “omniscient beings.” They will have to be honest with their constituencies when they feel that something voters want is not something they can — or should — deliver. Meanwhile the public and media need to allow the space for this honesty.

To hear more about Stewart’s ideas for what can bring trust back to democracy, watch his talk. Below, four more talks about the current state of democracy.

Ivan Krastev: Can democracy exist without trust?
Political theorist Ivan Krastev says that we are witnessing a “crisis of democracy.” Over the past 30 years, trust in democracy has begun to erode, with people feeling less and less like their vote matters – and that while they may be able to change who is in power, they are not able to affect what actions their government takes. In this talk from TEDGlobal 2012, Krastev sounds a warning bell about what this erosion of trust could mean for the future.

Yasheng Huang: Does democracy stifle economic growth?
Under China’s authoritarian rule, the economy has flourished. Meanwhile, under democracy, India’s economy has stalled. But Huang does not believe that it’s the system of government that is to blame for the discrepancy –  he believes that it is simply an issue of comparing apples to oranges. In this talk from TEDGlobal 2011, Huang shares why democracy should go hand-in-hand with growth.

Jarreth Merz: Filming democracy in Ghana
Filmmaker Jarreth Merz filmed Ghana’s 2008 elections – which required two re-votes because the final tallies were so close — for the documentary “An African Election.” At TEDGlobal 2011, he shared what he learned in the process, both about himself and about the “other side of democracy.”

Clay Shirky: How the internet will (one day) transform government
Open-source enthusiast Clay Shirky believes that democracy has a lot to learn from computer programmers. In this talk from TEDGlobal 2012, he describes how GitHub could be used to make lawmaking a fully participatory affair.