These were the words of Dutch activist Rutger Bregman in an interview with CNN. Earlier in the week, Bregman's passionate call at Davos for the rich to pay their fair share had gone viral.
But it's a single transferable quote. It could have been many politicians or wonks about any policy change they favor.
Politically, we live in a world of magical thinking, where to will something to be is enough to make it so.
Just last week, campaigners in the United Kingdom made the case for the country moving to a four-day working week. Now, Britain is in the middle of the lowest period of wage growth since the Napoleonic Wars, so it is a bold move to argue that every worker should take a 20% pay cut. But, wait! This is a cut in working hours -- but for exactly the same pay. How will that work? Easy, workers will be happier so they will be more productive.
H.L. Mencken warned that for every complex problem there is a solution that is "clear, simple, and wrong."
This phenomenon is way beyond his imagining. Magical thinking is the basis of the entire programme of President Donald Trump -- he governs by assertion. He'll build a wall and Mexico will pay -- even though they won't. His inauguration was the best attended in history -- even though it wasn't.
It's not just a presidential trope. Rising US Democrat star Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is for a 70% top rate of tax and massive state spending on a Green New Deal with no plausible route map for achieving a political majority for them. She just offers statements that it would be the right thing to do.
Brexit is a sandbox for the UK's political magical thinkers. For Brexiteers, the UK can become just like Singapore. They do this while conveniently ignoring that we have no leader as talented as Lee Kuan Yew, who led his country's economic transformation -- though we have many who envy his autocratic powers. And the Irish border needs no physical checks. Because, technology.
Similarly, the UK's opposition Labour Party wants a "Brexit for jobs" -- which is all the benefits of membership without any of the costs. Frictionless trade, within a customs union, without free movement or any restrictions on state aid but with a say over any future EU free trade deals with third parties.
It makes one nostalgic for the past. Inane as politics was in the earlier years of this decade with Obamas, Cameron's and Merkels, at least it was stable.
Where does this magical thinking come from? One could argue that the modern world is at least in part responsible. Uber, Deliveroo, Amazon Prime, all these services give the consumer an almost immediate service tailored as they like. Why is politics so outmoded?
But I think there might be something more visceral at its core.
Remember when Tinkerbell is dying in Peter Pan, and the audience must clap harder and harder to save her? The heart of magical thinking is the view that if you believe in something hard enough, then it will happen.
Peter Pan is the patron saint of modern politics.


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