Translator: Peter van de Ven Reviewer: Denise RQ
By the end of 2016,
more than 5,000 people had drowned crossing the Mediterranean Sea.
While indeed a large number of them were fleeing conflict,
an overwhelming number of them
were fleeing for their lives of trying to survive in extreme poverty.
By the end of 2016,
more than a million people had tried to enter the US illegally,
and while indeed a large number of them
were fleeing gang warfare in their barrios,
an overwhelming number of them were fleeing for their lives
of trying to survive on two dollars and 50 cents a day,
or what 50% of the world's population survives on.
So we've been found out.
Our wealth, our lifestyle,
this fairy tale that we live in our land, we've been found out.
And the world is coming for it,
whether it's Sub-Saharan Africa, or whether it's Latin America.
I'm not here today to talk about an immigration ban,
I'm not here to talk about a bigger or better wall.
I'm here to talk about capitalism.
Because I believe that capitalism
is the number one tool that we have to transform the world.
See, I am a product of capitalism.
The life that's been afforded to me is directly related to capitalism.
Today,
the way I spend my money, the way I live my life,
the things I say, the things I do
are directly related to capitalism.
I've been to socialist countries; I've been in social run hospitals.
I don't want anything to do with socialism.
I've been to communist countries; I've been in a communist jail.
I don't want anything to do with communism.
I believe that capitalism
is the number one tool that we have in the 21st century
to transform the globe, both spiritually, as well as physically.
But likewise, I also believe
if we'd take the words of the Apostle Paul from 1 Corinthians. 10.23,
where he said, "All things are permitted, but not all things are beneficial,"
if we'd apply those words to capitalism,
I believe that the world we live in today would be a different place.
The last decade, the numbers of people living in extreme poverty around the globe
have been cut dramatically.
During that same time span,
there's been incredible advancements in technology and globalization.
So today, now more than ever,
those masses still living in poverty
are aware more than ever
of just exactly what they're missing out on,
living in the Global South.
Honduras, for example.
Honduras has the largest population of immigrants coming to the US illegally,
per capita,
more so than any other country in the world right now.
But this don't really make sense.
In 2005, Honduras signed CAFTA, the Central America Free Trade Agreement.
Before that time, Honduras was considered the breadbasket of Central America,
exporting food throughout the region and beyond, in the late 80s and early 90s.
But with Honduras having this push for development,
like many countries around the globe,
the protections on the farmer were removed.
Protections that guaranteed the prices of key commodities,
essential for the local economy;
protections that many farmers in our land still enjoy today;
protections that my family has benefited from, directly.
Without these protections,
tens of thousands fled the local family farm.
This is exactly what the the owners of the 'maquilas' or the large sweatshops,
this is what they were after
when they were pushing this legislation to remove these protections.
See, for CAFTA to be successful, there had to be production,
production of goods to ship to the US.
And for there to be production, there had to be labor,
and for there to be labor, there had to be a source.
And that source was the family farm.
Over 500,000 people have migrated
from across Honduras
to the industrial capital of Puerto Cortes,
in just the past recent years.
The impact on the GDP of Honduras, the gross domestic product,
the value of all the goods produced in the country,
it's been phenomenal.
If we take a snapshot of the total GDP of Honduras
from five years before CAFTA and five years after CAFTA was signed,
from 2000-2010,
it's remarkable what we can find out.
In 2000, the total GDP sat at just under eight billion dollars,
but by 2010, that number had risen, more than doubling, to 16 billion dollars.
By any student of Economics measure, things are looking up for Honduras.
Total imports fell right in line,
growing from three to nine billion dollars,
and total exports followed that nicely, from two to six billion dollars.
Any economist would tell you that the massive investment made
by institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund,
the massive loans to help Honduras climb out of poverty:
it had paid off.
Honduras was generating wealth, and things were changing.
But if we look a little bit closer,
and look at the total population living at or below the poverty line
during those same ten years,
it's quite remarkable what we see.
In 2000, the total percent of Honduras living below the poverty line was 51.9%.
And in those ten years of really incredible wealth
that was being generated in this little Central American country,
we would expect that number
to be dropping dramatically or at least staying stagnant.
But it didn't, rather it rose a full eight percentage points by 2010,
coming in at 60% of the total population living below the poverty line.
Folks, something's wrong if total GDP, total imports, and total exports
are increasing dramatically,
and at the same time, the total numbers of people living in poverty
are increasing as well.
So, here's the problem:
life on the farm wasn't easy, but you had three squares a day.
You didn't have the latest technology or a new pair of Nike's,
but your family unit was strong,
and you didn't worry about your kids' safety.
Now you find yourself working in a large industrial park,
the pay isn't what you thought it would be,
the work is hard, the days are long.
To keep up, you leave your kids at home alone,
and since you struggle to make ends meet, you live in a marginal neighborhood.
Pretty soon, your kids at home, alone, found a new family,
and that are the gangs.
And after a while,
you're overworked, you're worn out,
and you can't take it, and you quit.
And embarrassed, you don't go back home either,
so you stay in,
and that place that once seemed like this beautiful urban sprawl,
now feels just like urban squalor,
and that gang ridden barrio you live in leaves much to be desired.
It doesn't take long before it feels like the only option available
is to set off on a very dangerous journey,
in search of an ever elusive American dream to the north.
This situation is being played out around the globe,
and while more and more free trade agreements are being signed,
the world has experienced a technological enlightenment.
Over the last decade, the number of folks with access to a mobile device
has exploded around the world.
On the continent of Africa alone, the growth has been exponential.
Ghana, for example, from 2002 to 2015,
saw a rise in mobile phone users from 8% to 83% of the population.
Similar numbers are reported from across the continent of Africa,
according to the Pew Research Center.
In 1998, I made my first trip to Honduras,
and at that time, only a few major cities had mobile phone coverage.
But by 2005, the entire country was connected,
and today, remarkably,
it's reported that 90% of all Hondurans own a mobile device.
Telecommunications pioneers realized that these places
where at one time, it had been impossible to be connected,
now it's really easy to connect.
It can be made affordable yet profitable at the same time.
One of those telecommunications giants,
Digicel, is owned by Irish billionaire Denis O'Brien.
Digicel operates in 33 markets, globally.
Digicel,
along with other telecommunications companies with similar strategies,
perfected their approach to the developing world:
mass marketing tied to giveaways of simple mobile phones
that quickly hooked the inhabitants of those poverty stricken slums,
as well as open the eyes for the first time
to that rural subsistence farmer,
to just exactly what he was missing out on in the Global South.
Then by 2010, the same telecommunications companies
expanded their portfolios to include affordable satellite TV.
Now, for about 15 dollars a month,
you can have a little, simple, red satellite dish
stuck on the side of your mud hut in your remote jungle village of Honduras,
where every day, you can enjoy
the local news as well as international news.
But also, you can enjoy the pop culture reality show phenomena
that we export from our land,
like Honey Boo Boo and Duck Dynasty.
Folks, if what we're exporting from our land around the globe,
conveniently dubbed into French and Spanish,
if what we're exporting as reality
consists of a trailer-park beauty queen and a couple of bearded good old boys,
who wouldn't want to come to be a part of this reality?
(Laughter)
Who wouldn't want to be here?
Then in 2013, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced a new endeavor.
Free Basics was the name of it;
this partnership with technology manufacturers
and telecommunication companies around the globe,
with the goal to connect the two thirds of the world's population
to the Internet, that were still unconnected.
Today, more than 15 million people
have accessed the Internet for the first time,
through the Free Basics program.
Statistics say
that one in ten that accessed the Internet for the first time
are able to climb out of poverty.
It wasn't entirely about helping the impoverished escape poverty
that was motivating Zuckerberg.
The white paper that he released in 2013 that detailed this new endeavor,
it might read like an incredible gesture of humanitarian aid
through access to technology,
but in reality, it was going to achieve some very different goals.
Facebook was going to have a very captive audience to advertise to
in new and emerging markets,
in particular since the Internet was only accessible through the Facebook app.
Remarkably, it's reported that more than half
of all first-time users of the Internet through the Free Basics program
had signed up to pay for full data on their devices, within 30 days.
So what might have sounded
like an incredible gesture of humanitarian aid
was for all practical purposes very wise marketing.
And for an enormous reality check,
a large number of the countries participating in the Free Basics plan
are located on the continent of Africa.
Now a continent plagued with conflict, famine, and failed aid programs
had access, like never before,
to what life really was like in the Global North.
If access to a simple mobile device had left any doubt
in that disenfranchised, unemployed slum dweller,
if it left any doubt what they're missing out on,
now, access to affordable satellite TV
or free Internet
was surely to open their eyes.
What we're talking about here is a case of planetary haves and have-nots.
On this planet called Earth and in a country called the USA,
our poverty line is set
at about 64 dollars a day or about 25,000 dollars a year.
That's more money than most doctors, lawyers, and upper level management
earn in a year, in the developing world.
And on that same planet Earth,
the World Bank sets the poverty line for the developing nations
at 2 dollars a day.
From 1991 to 2005,
the numbers of people living in extreme poverty around the globe
were cut in half,
except in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Sub-Saharan Africa, home to many of those same countries
from the Free Basics program from Facebook;
Sub-Saharan Africa, home to the overwhelming majority
of the economic refugees fleeing out of North Africa
risking their lives in the Mediterranean to enter Europe.
Sub-Saharan Africa, in those same 14 years,
saw the number of people living in extreme poverty rise from 11% to 28%.
Social and economic development programs were failing.
Meanwhile,
large multinational corporations continue to increase their profits
from endeavors in many of the same countries
whose poverty lines continue to rise.
We live in a fallen world, and we're imperfect people,
we tend to our own best interest as individuals and as people groups.
And we're apt to repeat the same mistakes
when we disregard our fallen condition and ignore our history.
In 1776, we made great claims of equality for all men,
yet, we enslaved our own,
until the Civil War, almost 100 years later.
And then, after the Civil War,
with an increased workforce of both African American and white workers,
they got together to fight poor conditions, poor pay, and long hours
until eventually, new laws were enacted.
And as production was growing across the US,
the cost of production was growing as well,
in particularly because of these new labor laws.
Until then we realized
we could still get cheap labor beyond our borders.
We didn't realize exactly how cheap just yet,
but we were going to get addicted really quick.
Over the course of 150 years, we went from enslaving our own
to outsourcing our slavery around the globe - to developing nations,
and in spite of eventual recognition
that "all men" included both African Americans and women,
we still fail to honor
the very Declaration that our country was founded on
through willful ignorance of its application
to other people groups around the globe.
We failed to secure the workforce beyond our borders;
we failed to acknowledge who we shake hands with;
we've turned a blind eye to those who we do business with
in order to achieve the prices we want on the products we want.
While many American corporations
continue to profit intentionally at the expense of others,
the world's receiving a wake-up call to the dire need of others.
You know, when we make poor choices out of corporate self-interest,
there's often unintended consequences.
The current rising tide of immigration in our land
is not sustainable.
The rising tide of the Global South to the Global North is not sustainable.
But isolation is not the answer, rather it's innovation.
We've tried to keep everyone out,
it doesn't work!
Because even the finest castle with the best walls
will eventually fail when they're besieged by the masses.
But what if we innovate the way we do business around the globe
so the rest of the world would want to stay at home?
What if we innovate the way we do business
so the rest of the globe could thrive at home,
so the rest of the world could chase after that same life
to the fullest,
that you and I all want, at home?
This innovation will require a dramatic commitment to humane wages
that allow workers to not only survive but to thrive.
If you want to protect your country, the future of your country,
if you want to continue to enjoy capitalism and its benefits,
then we must take steps
to protect and to secure the sustainable future
of the overseas workforce.
The social entrepreneurial endeavors of our organization, Mission Lazarus,
are proof that you can run a profitable business paying great wages
and earn a profit at the same time.
We're creating jobs
in employment deprived communities in both Honduras and Haiti
that are also generating valuable revenue
that we're able to put directly back into our development initiatives.
I get it.
During your weekly grocery shopping at Whole Foods,
it's not practical for most of us.
But I believe that knowledge is power,
and when we, the people, have the power, then we can change the world.
The choices that you guys make today
will directly affect the futures of your children and your grandchildren.
But if we fail to act,
because, one: it's not going to be easy,
two: the shareholders drive the bottom line,
and three, "You know what? It's my company.
I worked hard to build it, it's my money, I'm going to use it how I want to;"
if we fail to act, then life as we know it,
in Western Europe and the US,
will not continue.
I believe that as savvy business men and women,
we may be able to have the market cornered in many areas for a long time,
but nobody can have monopoly
on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,
and have it last for forever.
Thank you.
(Applause)