Manufacturing is the most important...route to prosperity. - Ha-Joon Chang

The danger is not only that these austerity measures are killing the European economies but also that they threaten the very legitimacy of European democracies – not just directly by threatening the livelihoods of so many people and pushing the economy into a downward spiral, but also indirectly by undermining the legitimacy of the through this backdoor rewriting of the social contract.

<nowiki>[</nowiki>Capitalism...] [I]t's not how it will change, but how we have to change it... because given the existing , and power, unless the ordinary citizens and the progressive people get organized and press the governments, they are not going to change things automatically. ...We've seen that after the 2008 financial crisis... so for about... 9 months they embraced Keynes... and then the bailed out banks [etc]... and they were going to reform the financial system... After 2 years it was... back to the old game... and then things got even worse because... in some countries like the US and the UK... the right-wing governments were elected, and then... in the US... Donald Trump... invalidated many of the reforms that were introduced to the financial market, after Obama, after the crisis... [I]f we don't keep fighting it's not going to change... [T]here are new opportunities and new solidarities emerging... new ways of thinking, but... how they all will gel together and translate into collective action, public policies, institutional changes, that's... up to us. Everyone.

The pandemic has revealed that... poor people—people in marginalized communities—are more prone to contract the disease and die from it because of generally worse health, limited access to health care, and other things that define this unequal society. ...[A] positive way to respond to this is to accept that and find a way to reduce that inequality, and it is already happening in some countries. ...I'm not usually a cheerleader for my own country, South Korea... we have so many shameful world records... the highest suicide rate, the lowest fertility rate... name it, but South Korea has... managed the pandemic really well, first of all because... despite this general aversion to the welfare state, it has a very robust public health insurance. ...So anyone who had problems could... get tested and treated... This is how you manage to keep the death toll under 300, but in that country... because it controlled the health situation so well, it actually didn't go into full lockdown, but still, people were wary of going out and the biggest sufferers from this was... people... running small bars, restaurants, karaoke bars... [T]hese people were very hard hit and... I was... surprised [the country is] talking about universal employment insurance scheme. So... it doesn't matter what your job used to be... Countries are now talking about introducing that covers people who work in any type of company, self-employed people, social platform workers, people working in the . ...[I]f it happens it will be a really progressive change...