We need to learn to work with political systems that are not perfect instead of taking the view: let's first fix the politics, then we'll fix the rest.
Interpretation
We should engage with flawed political systems rather than waiting for them to become perfect before addressing other issues.
Abhijit Banerjee highlights the importance of pragmatism in dealing with political systems. Instead of insisting on perfect conditions as a prerequisite for progress, he encourages a proactive approach that acknowledges the imperfections of political structures while still working towards solving broader societal issues.
In practice
During a political seminar discussing reform strategies.
Here is an entirely banal idea that I think has the potential to change the world: Take evidence seriously. Taking evidence seriously does not mean privileging numbers over all other forms of knowledge - theories, narratives, images. Nor does it mean the kind of radical skepticism that questions everything to the point where no action is possible.
In the development business doing something for both women and the environment is the equivalent of holding a royal flush in poker.
One problem with globalisation is that bad ideas seem to travel faster than good ones; first there was smearing tomato ketchup on everything; then drinking sugar-soaked cocktails ('Cosmo'-politanism) instead of our traditional whisky soda, and now this idea that we should abandon the poor to their fate in order to protect their dignity.
Will we make all poverty history? No. But can we solve some of these extreme and egregious forms of poverty? I think yes, and we should.
The Korean government is the first to declare that if you replace people with machines you have to pay a tax. It's a tax on robots. They make private companies internalise the social cost of unemployment. Social benefit is not the same as private benefit. We have to realise this.
Most farmers know that their children's future will probably not be in agriculture, but they have a hard time imagining a different life.
To announce that there must be no criticism of the president... is morally treasonable to the American public.
There cannot be true democracy unless all citizens are able to participate fully in the lives of their country.
Voting is merely a labor-saving device for ascertaining on which side force lies and bowing to the inevitable... It is neither more nor less than a paper representative of the bayonet, the bully, and the bullet.
A sincere and steadfast co-operation in promoting such a reconstruction of our political system as would provide for the permanent liberty and happiness of the United States.
This was the way I was brought up to think of politics, that politics was to do with ethics, it was to do with responsibility, it was to do with service, so I think I was conditioned to think like that, and I'm too old to change now.
In inner-party politics, these methods lead, as we shall yet see, to this: the party organization substitutes itself for the party, the central committee substitutes itself for the organization, and, finally, a dictator substitutes himself for the central committee.
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